i think taj fouled out as a cumulative effect of having to deal with randle's physicality all game long. he was committing "tired body"/frustration fouls at the end. two straight games where randle's competitive spirit was palpable through the television set. this is good.
Right at the start of the game the refs let Gibson bang him backwards and knock him down outside the key when he was in position and then called a foul on him. A number of BS fouls and calls again last night by the refs. So the beast kept coming.
I was upset at that call too, but Taj ended up fouling out of the game, so I didn't bother me too much after the game was over. Refs called a bunch of fouls on both teams. 24 for us. 26 for the Bulls.
I thought Taj tried to set that tone too and ended up losing the physicality battle. Pretty impressive fight for a young man.
You could tell by the first defensive possession of the game Randle was going to battle with Taj all game. The effort and intensity was certainly there whether he got the 20 rebounds or not.
They got in his head last night and rendered him impotent. Not a good look. Hopefully he learns to adjust quickly. If you say you are the motor behind the team, you can't be throwing in the towel. That effort last night was.....
He doesn't look right to me, but I could be wrong. I think he still suffering from some discomfort in that hip.
I think he's fine. More of a mixture of 4 games in 5 nights, getting some tough calls on him during the game which put him in foul trouble. Playing less minutes because of the foul trouble which = harder to get into any sort of rhythm.
I think he's not comfortable as the player who initiates the offense. With Russell and Young to do that for the starters, a lot of the pressure is off his shoulders and he can focus on his game. Right now with those guys out, he's kinda forced into making decisions he hasn't needed to do in this system and he's back to rushing things again and the offense has looked stagnant with very little movement. An easy tell is how Deng is trying to force the issue on offense. Does he look better? Sure, but that's not how we play our best basketball. Right now, we're missing key pieces to our offense and it's showing. As for Randle, he needs to let the game to come to him and trust the offense. He's trying to hard to "be the man" when he just needs to let the game flow.
Agreed. Last night he tried to initiate contact with Gobert and wanted a foul (which he didn't deserve). Afterwards he was clutching his hip.
Yes. He has to be hurting. I think he is trying to toughen it out because of all the injuries we have, but in the process of him doing that, I'm afraid he might hurt something else. Either way, Larry practiced today, and Randle should either not play or you limit his minutes and go with Larry.
