Boylan offers upbeat outlook
Standard postgame procedure in the NBA is to move on quickly. According to Bulls coach Jim Boylan, his players are permitted to celebrate a victory or mourn a defeat for one night only.
So when the Bulls woke up from Tuesday's nightmare loss to the Knicks, Boylan was ready with a positive dose of reality.
As of Wednesday morning, the Bulls (13-20) were just 3 games behind Atlanta for the final playoff spot in the East and 4 games behind No. 4 seed Washington.
"We want our guys to focus in on the task at hand, which is trying to get something going and get ourselves back into the playoffs," Boylan said. "Luckily, even though we've struggled some this year at times, we're still within reach of that. If we can put together a couple weeks of good, solid basketball, we'll be in good shape."
Andres Nocioni and Kirk Hinrich both stayed home from Wednesday's practice at the Berto Center because of flu-like symptoms. The Bulls will depart today for a four-game road trip with stops in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami.
Gray in offensive battle: Rookie center Aaron Gray gave the Bulls efficient offense on Tuesday, scoring 12 points and hitting 5 of 6 shots from the field in just under 10 minutes of action.
On the other hand, Knicks center Eddy Curry scored 13 of his game-high 29 points while Gray was on the floor.
"Eddy's a load," Jim Boylan said. "We talked today for the younger guys especially, you need to be a student of the game and a student of the people you're playing against. So the next time Aaron plays against Eddy Curry, he should have a better feel for what Eddy likes to do.
"All the young guys should be building some sort of catalog of the people they're going up against, because you're going to be seeing those guys for the next 10 years. You've got to start figuring out what you can and can't do, and what you need to do to try to contain them."
No news on Knicks' goof: As of late Wednesday, the NBA was still reviewing the Knicks' roster blunder. When New York submitted its list of active and inactive players before beating the Bulls at the United Center, Renaldo Balkman was listed twice and Quentin Richardson not at all.
The referees decided it was a correctable error, allowed Richardson to play, and the former DePaul star scored 5 points. The 2007-08 NBA Case Book states that a player not on the active roster submitted by the team should not be allowed to participate in the game or even sit on the bench.
There is probably no chance the outcome of Tuesday's game changes, but it will be interesting to see if the league believes the referees acted correctly or if Richardson should have been sent to the locker room.