The Morning After Blog: Monday Edition
By Laurence Holmes--
CHICAGO (WSCR) Derrick Rose can't do it all on his own (even though it sometimes seems he can). Other Bulls have to score. I'm looking at you Kyle Korver. Korver went 0-5 from the arc Monday night. He also looked like he was on skates when trying to defend Jeff Teague.
It's funny how coming into this series, the Atlanta Hawks were portrayed as mentally weak. It was fair criticism, but in their two wins in the series, they've turn the tables on the Bulls. Monday night, the 4th quarter was a disaster. The Bulls had a bunch of terrible turnovers and missed layups. No Bull other than Rose hit a field goal until almost the seven-minute mark. Then it got really weird. Bennett Salvatore had a brain cramp and Tom Thibodeau trumped it with a befuddling Chris Webber-esque phantom timeout. We've seen the Bulls have bad shooting nights, it's rare that we've seen them play dumb basketball.
-The White Sox haven't had a 3-game win streak all year. They get their shot Monday against the Angels. If you believe in baseball luck, then the Sox just got some. They will not see Jered Weaver or Dan Haren in this three-game set. Both of these guys are worthy of early Cy Young talk and when they pitched against the Sox in April, they combined for 13 1/3 innings pitched, four earned runs and 10 strike outs which resulted in tow Sox losses.
-There are two things that really worry me about the Cubs: runners in scoring position and Starlin Castro. Castro is slumping. He has only seven hits in his last 51 at-bats and only two in his last 25. Over the weekend, the Cubs left 25 men on base and went 4-for-24 with RISP. The good news is that Ryan Dempster has seemed to find himself. He's only given up three earned runs in his last 14 innings pitched. More importantly he hasn't walked anyone since the first inning of his Dodgers start. The Cubs can't even dream of contending if he isn't pitching well.
I'll be discussing all of this tonight starting at 6:00 p.m.
