Well the 4th quarter was nice to watch, but the rest of the game wasnt really. They need to shoot better from the FT line, that is one of the few stats that shouldnt change much between preseason and regular season. I really liked what I saw from Noah again, depending on his MPG I think its reasonable he could average 5-6 RPG and 1 BPG this year. His scoring definitely needs alot of work, but unlike big ben, I feel like theres potential there. Thablo and Tyrus also impressed me. I like Thablo's all around game, and I still think Tyrus could average close to 10 rpg and 2 bpg with 35 mpg right now. Kirk needs to play better, one of the worst games I have seen from him. Gordon didnt show much either way but I think he'll be fine for the regular season. Nice to see them cut the deficit from 20 to 8 in the 4th.

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Who's Thablo? Damn Packer fans

I was actually surprised with a couple of the shots Noah made; he's got that crazy shooting style, but it seems to work alright. My hope is that between Gray and Noah the Boo will be able to get some consistent offensive production out of the Center spot; I'm not asking for a lot, but it'd be nice to get a few baskets early on to set the tone.

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Yeah Noah had a decent hook shot, and him, Tyrus, and Gray all did a decent job of crashing the offensive boards and getting put backs, which would be maybe the most valuable skill set from out big guys considering our backcourt talent.

Just saw Thablo's line, 12 Pts on 5/8 shooting, 7 boards, 4 assists, 1 steal in 26 minutes. I know its only preseason but thats the type of game you want to see from him. I think he could surprise alot of people this season

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While they will never be a great free throw shooting team as long as Big Ben is around, their percentage should improve once the regular season starts. Keep in mind that their best FT shooter (BG) has only played one game and Deng has seen limited action as well. Hinrich & Nocioni have been a little off so far @ 60%, but the real culprits have been guys unlikely to see any time this year.

Lets take a look at the guys who missed FT's for us yesterday:
Thomas 4-8
Gray 3-4
Nocioni 1-2
B. Wallace 0-1
Kirk 0-4

Im pretty sure they're all going to see PT this year. Wallace will prob only shoot 2-4 FT's a game so he's not the one that will drag the team down.

But their FT% will go up when kirk starts hitting them. Not to mention Gordon will prob shoot the most FT's this year and he has the best percentage on the team i'm pretty sure.

What I'm more concerned about is that we had only 26 FT attempts to Dallas's 43. thats 17 more FT attempts and we only lost by 8.

So we definetly need to make our FT's but if they're getting that many more attempts thats a bigger problem. Like I said their FT% will definetly improve. I bet Gordon and Deng help to close the FTA gap as well but how much?

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Dallas always shoots alot of FTs and shoots them well. Chicago is still a very predominantly shooting team, which will always shoot less FTs, however, while many "shooting" teams dont shoot as many FTs as teams with slashers and post scorers, they usually make a higher %. If you arent doing either one well, much like special teams in the NFL, it will be an overlooked stat that kills them in several games.

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I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
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Last year we attempted 25.4(18th) a game and dallas attempted 24.9(19th). We both allowed 27 attempts a game last year.
I agree that we're a shooting team and that we need to improve our FT%. last year dallas shot 80.49% and we shot 73.36%.
But like we've been saying we didnt have our shooters out there. deng didnt play and gordon barely played. the FT attempt gap was more of a problem than the % yesterday but i cant say im very worried about either. i doubt kirk goes 0/4 the rest of the season.



edit: to make it a more mature post

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my bad on double posting but i had to say that dallas does not always shoot a lot of FT's (19th in the league is not a lot) and when you say chicago will always shoot less FT's i dont know how you could have checked the stats and still say that with so much confidence (i hate those opinion statements). Chicago attempted more per game last year. dallas avg = 24 and yesterday shot 43. thats not good

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I think your reading too much into results from 1 game - particularly a pre-season game. Over the long haul there will plenty of games with free throw disparities on both sides. Unless Gray actually does get significant minutes, Kirk is the only guy who'll regularly get into foul trouble.

i said 2 posts ago i wasnt worried about their opponents attempts or our percentage from the game. i was just sayin the attempts was more of a problem that particular game (and for much of the preseason).

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