Game film vs. Celts gets thumbs down
BOSTON -- Instead of traveling to Miami immediately after the game Friday night -- as they often do -- the Bulls' itinerary called for them to stay over and practice before departing for Florida.
After the 118-90 drubbing they suffered at the hands of the Boston Celtics, it's a good bet the players would have preferred to get out of town quickly.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
The story line: The Bulls look to bounce back from Friday night's blowout loss in Boston against Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat, one of the teams they figure to battle for playoff position in the Eastern Conference.
John Jackson
It's also a good bet that the last thing the players wanted to do was relive the experience by watching a replay of the game, but that's precisely how coach Vinny Del Negro began practice Saturday -- with a film session.
Needless to say, no one's opinion of the performance was changed by watching it again.
''We were on our heels, we weren't physical enough --the same thing I said after the game,'' Del Negro said. ''We just need to continually improve every day.
''Playing San Antonio and Boston back-to-back, you're hard-pressed to start off any tougher than that.''
Before the regular season began, a split of the two games appeared to be a reasonable outcome for the Bulls. It wasn't the loss to the Celtics that was troubling, but rather that they didn't compete the entire game.
While trying not to make too much of one game, Del Negro made it clear at the end of practice that Friday's performance was unacceptable. ''That's not who we are,'' he said, among other things, as the players gathered together before breaking up.
''We're 1-1 going into [today] against Miami,'' Del Negro said. ''We have to get back to where we were defensively -- we slipped a little [Friday] night -- and we have to start making some shots.
''You can rely on your defense a lot, but you also have to make shots and put some pressure on teams. We haven't been able to do that in both games. We were able to get away with it against San Antonio because we did so well on the glass and second-chance points, but [Friday] night -- give Boston credit. They shot the ball really well, but we helped them play as well as they did.''
One player the Bulls have to get going is shooting guard John Salmons. The swingman shot 47.2 percent last season with the Bulls and Sacramento Kings, but is 5-for-29 (17.2 percent) through two games.
''I don't know,'' Salmons said when asked if he could explain his slump. ''You just have to make shots. It's been a tough couple of days shooting the ball. You just have to make shots.''
Salmons has watched film to see if he's doing something technically wrong, but believes the correction is as simple as putting the ball in the hoop.
''Most of the time, I feel like it's more me than anything,'' he said. ''I've got to do something a little different, see what's going on.''
Del Negro doesn't believe Salmons is taking bad shots, but would like to see him drive to the basket.
''Against San Antonio, he shot a lot of threes, and when you're off like that, I'd like to see him attack a little more,'' the coach said. ''We talked about that. [Friday] night, I thought he forced a couple early, but he had good shots, we had good shots.''
Del Negro believes the shots will start falling eventually.
''If you look at the tape -- and I have several times -- our ball movement needs to be a little bit crisper and our strong-to-weak ball movement needs to be better,'' he said. ''But overall, I thought we got some good looks at the basket and we weren't able to knock 'em down.
''We'll just keep on playing hard and, hopefully, we'll start knocking some shots down.''