Thursday Night Non-Running Diary: Bulls, 'Hawks, ect.

I realize that it has become a TUP staple to write about the Bears every Friday during the NFL season. I'm not doing that today. The reasons for this are twofold.

a) That game in Cincinnati was downright depressing. Demoralizing. But I think at this point, we've established that it was only one game and the Bears' season certainly isn't ovah quite yet. Good. No reason to waste a bunch more time and words to rehash that. The Bears really don't deserve a full-on preview this week, so this is all they're getting. But more importantly...

b) I work nights and thus miss a lot of premium sports action. Thankfully I was off last night though, and the proverbial sports Gods hooked me up: we had the World Series on Fox, the Bulls on TNT, the Blackhawks on Comcast, all on at the same time. There was a Foo Fighters concert on Palladia, too. SO MANY THOUGHTS ON EVERYTHING.

I was thinking about doing a running diary, but it became apparent that the Bulls captured 80-90 percent of my attention. So instead, consider this a roundup from a wonder night of sports on television action.







- So good to have the Bulls back in our lives, right? For as stupid and pessimistic as I was being on the big stage a few weeks back, I actually really like this team and think they should be pretty decent. I love Rose. I love Tyrus. I love Brad Miller. I'm pulling for Deng. Noah (and Tyrus, for that matter) had a semi-breakout last year, he should at least do that again this season. I don't even hate VDN. Really, I don't.

All of these things are much easier to say after last night, of course.

I haven't seen this in the various other blog recaps yet, but I have to say that I really thought the Spurs played like shit. Their defense was atrocious, they were bricking open shots left and right (way to suck, Richard Jefferson), and no one outside of Duncan could do anything.

The Bulls certainly deserve credit for some for that, though.

The defense was really astounding. It runs deeper than losing Gordon, too: this was full-on team D. The Bulls were challenging virtually every shot, making crisp rotations, and going all-out on the glass. Tyrus, Noah, and Deng were hitting the boards with attitude last night. Our guys didn't allow any easy shots. Yeah, Duncan kind of dominated, but sometimes you just have to tip your cap and call Tim Duncan your daddy.

Text of the Night: From my boss, responding to my bitching about Taj Gibson.

Second round pick from a shitty draft. If all he does is rebound and keep Tyrus from getting complacent, it's a win.

True that.

Tyrus was brutal in the first half. Then he got pulled for Taj, and Taj played a lot of minutes. He didn't play them particularly well, but he was on the floor nonetheless. Tyrus returned in the second half and had a great third quarter. Taj-influenced?

You have to think that any Taj Love has to light a fire under Tyrus. He's not the young guy anymore. Though, of course, he's younger than Taj Gibson: 13 months younger! Crazy, right? Throw in that this is a contract year for Tyrus - I love him, but he does kind of seem like one of those guys - and I think he's in for his best season to date. Not a terribly radical prediction by me, of course - this is exactly what should happen to a 23-year old entering his fourth season. It's still nice to see him grow and mature, though.

LOL Moment of the Night: Noah's "I Can't Feel My Face" taunt after knocking down a 16-foot jumper. What an awesome taunt. It's cool when DeShawn Stevenson does it after knocking down four straight trey's, it's cool when Noah does it after hitting one mid-range jump shot.


Not only a great taunt, but also a great dance move. We need more of this.

- Also Hilarious: The alley-oop attempt to Hinrich. On what planet is Kirk capable of finishing that? Certainly not one with gravity.

In conclusion: great win.







Tough loss against a bad team. Boo. I saw Huet make some nice saves, though. I admire his resilience after a rocky start.

Still, the 'Hawks have kind of been running in place lately. So says Second City Hockey:

Aside from the 3rd against the Wild, and maybe a period against the Preds at home, when was the last time this team looked really good?  It's hard to complain about 7-4-1, especially when you're two best all-around forwards have missed time.  But there have definitely been some points gone to waste, and you never know when that might come back to haunt you.

Can it just be the playoffs yet? The NHL and NBA regular seasons are just far too long. I'll give baseball a break because of the meaningful statistics, but hockey and basketball really need to condense this thing.

World Series

Two things:

- My friend (and occasional TUP contributor) Bradwell loves the Phillies more than everything else in the world combined. This is not hyperbole. Before the World Series started, I asked him how it felt compared to last year. 

Want it so much more this time around. Love this lineup so very much. Last year was sort of luck, this year is the Kennedy Assassination.

We both agreed that Jayson Werth's goatee is the grassy knoll in this analogy.


- When I was flipping channels on my Comcast box and saw "World Series", I automatically assumed it was the World Series of Poker. This says terrible things about the American zeitgeist of the aughts.

Foo Fighters

Leading up to all of this, we had a Foo Fighters concert on Palladia from Wembley Stadium.

- How the hell does this band fill, like, the biggest stadium in the world? I go back and forth on how cool I think the Foo Fighters are. It generally fluctuates between 10 percent cool and 60 percent cool. So, of course, they're not actually cool. I don't actually like them. But I guess I sort of respect them. A little bit.

Things working in their favor: "Everlong" in an undeniably great track. Perhaps one of the 10 best alternative rock songs of the 90's. Dave Groehl was in Nirvana (and was awesome in Nirvana), so that gives them the low end of my allotted cool spectrum. And they like the Arcade Fire.

But that's about it. Everything else about them is pretty lame. Not terrible, not cool, not good. But, again, how do they sell out Wembley Stadium? This blows my mind. It's like people overseas will like anything just because it's American. I don't get it.