Tonight the Bulls head to Detroit and play the Pistons.  The Pistons are a great team.  The Bulls…not so great.  Detroit has exactly what the Bulls are looking for - cohesion and fun.  When I watch the Pistons I can’t help but think what a good time they’re having.  Those guys have gelled. Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Wallace, and McDyess are like the Osmond siblings - on top of the world and loving every minute of it.  Besides the Celtics the Pistons are the best team in the Eastern Conference.   For those of you who don’t know, Bulls center Ben Wallace was part of this Detroit family before getting greedy and having the Bulls overpay him.  Now they’ve got guys like Antonio McDyess and Jason Maxiell playing center and playing well.  So, that said, what do the Bulls have to do tonight to get a W?

1) Keep Rasheed Wallace in the post.  When Rasheed gets going from outside, he’s unstoppable.  Combine that with decent post play and he’ll score 28 on you.

2)  Play tight on Rip Hamilton.  Rip loves coming off the screen a la Reggie Miller.  Assuming that Kirk Hinrich will be guarding Hamilton, the undersized Hinrich will need to stay on him.  As my youth soccer coach used to say, “I want you to play so close to your guy that you’ll know what color underwear he’s wearing.”  Now I’m not advocating for a Rip Hamilton/Kirk Hinrich lingerie show, but Hinrich has to play him close.

3) Gordon needs to not suck.

4) Nocioni has to knock some guys around.  Andres has become the team hitman, if you will.  Whenever someone on the opposite team needs a good shovin’, count on Nocioni.  He’s tough as nail, this guy.

5) Do not, I repeat, do not, let Ben Wallace shoot the ball.  Dunking is fine, but when Big Ben tries to get creative he looks like I did on the Biddy Ball Cardinals (1998) sporting the number 10 XL jersey.  The Pistons know first hand how horrible Wallace is on offense.

Can the Bulls win tonight?  Yes, of course. Will they?  To be determined.

Random thought of the day: Tom Dwars was right when he said he needs us to start playing for the Bulls (on facebook).  By the way, Tom and I were a nasty forward/center combination back in the day.

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Remember, you can contact me at GCWritesSports@gmail.com

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under Gabe Culberg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.