Rivers thinks layoff will help Thibs

There may be no better source in the NBA for a Tom Thibodeau life update than Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers.

Thibodeau was Rivers' top assistant in Boston from 2007-10, when the Celtics won a championship and reached Game 7 of the Finals another time. The Maywood native offered this Thibs update before Thursday's game.

"That's a tough question," Rivers said. "Have I talked to him recently? Other than every day, I would say no.

"He's an interesting guy. I mean, he loves basketball. I think this has been good for him, the year off. I took a forced year off (after getting fired by Orlando in 2003) and I thought at the end of the day it was good for me. I'm sure at the time I didn't, I will say that. But after going through it I thought it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It let me take a look back at what I needed to do better and what worked."

The Bulls fired Thibodeau last May after he led the team to the playoffs five times in five years. Thibodeau figures to be a top candidate for most any NBA job that becomes available next summer.

"I'm sure he's doing the same thing (during his time off)," Rivers said. "He watches more games than I did, I can tell you that. I was golfing."

Rivers was asked if Thibodeau had any comments about the Clippers' defense, which ranks 18th in points allowed and 27th in rebounds per game.

"He screamed at me," Rivers said, without elaborating.

Gibson stays a starter:

Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg continued the experiment of starting Taj Gibson at power forward and moving Nikola Mirotic to a reserve role.

Hoiberg made the switch for Wednesday's 105-100 loss at Boston. Gibson finished with 8 points and 7 rebounds while playing just under 20 minutes. Mirotic scored 10 points in 22 minutes off the bench.

"I thought we got off to a good start (with the new lineup)," Hoiberg said before Thursday's game. "I thought we did a little better job of putting some pressure on the rim early in that game. That's what we have to do with that group. Pau (Gasol) is obviously very good with his back to the basket. But in the pick and roll, he's more of a pop guy getting in the pocket so we've got somebody (Gibson) putting pressure on the rim and hopefully open up some things for our perimeter guys."

Hoiberg accepts blame:

With the Bulls riding a three-game losing streak, coach Fred Hoiberg took blame for the team's inconsistent play.

"Whatever lineup combinations you have out there, I need to do a good job of finding things that work for that particular group," he said. "I haven't done that so far, and I need to do a better job of finding a way when we don't have Jimmy (Butler) on the floor or we don't have Derrick (Rose) on the floor, trying to keep one of them out there with that second unit. We've got to do a good job of finding something that's going to keep the ball moving."

Hoiberg refused to blame Rose for the team's inability to push the ball successfully.

"He and I had a good meeting today, and hopefully we'll continue to clean that up as far as how we want to get the ball down the floor," he said. "Right now I think we're seventh in the league in pace. We're just not very efficient. We're not efficient on the offense end right now."

All-star voting begins:

NBA All-Star voting began Thursday. Every player in the league is eligible to receive votes and there are numerous ways to cast a ballot.

Fans can fill out one ballot per day at nba.com/vote; they can use the NBA app; write the player's first and last name with the hashtag #NBAVOTE on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram; text the player's last name to 69622 or use Google to search for "NBA vote all-star" and select players.