Rose vs Mayo recap

So the game I talked about last night wasn’t as thrilling as I expected. Although it was a good contest, which the Grizzlies ended up winning 103 to 96, it wasn’t the rookie showdown I wanted to see:

Mayo finished the game with 14 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds, while Rose came up with 12 points and 11 assists, the second time he got 10 assists or more and his 3rd double-double of the season.

Although the two didn’t deliver huge performances, there were still a couple of things to notice in this game:

• Even though he tried, Mayo really struggled on defense against Ben Gordon. He wasn’t able to keep up with Ben running through screens off the ball at all, and Gordon lit him up for 18 points in the first quarter before getting into foul trouble.

• Mayo still has to work on his shot selection. We all know the guy has a beautiful stroke and he can get any shot he wants, but that doesn’t mean he should take just any shot. He is often taking some ill advised, heavily contested jumpers and he’s missed the most of his jump-shots, with the majority of his points coming off drives and at the free throw line.

• Rose on the other hand should look to shoot the ball more than he does, while he did take as many shots as O.J. Mayo, he was still playing too unselfish. He passed up a lot of good shots by kicking the ball out on drives or simply deciding no to take the jumper. What’s so bad about this is the fact that whenever Rose does actually want to score nothing can keep him from getting to the basket, as he often shows late in games.

As far as the Rookie of the Year race is concerned, I would give this contest to Derrick Rose, hands down, even though his unselfish play might have hurt the team, he still put up satisfying numbers, while Mayo didn’t deliver much besides his 14 points.

Now, this is not me hating on O.J. (man, that name is tainted) it’s just me simply stating the facts, and for tonight, between him and Rose, the latter simply one the battle, even if it wasn’t the epic one I was hoping for.

As for the other players and the game itself, it was a closely contested game, until the Grizzlies pulled away late. The top-performers for the winning game were Rudy Gay and Hakeem Warrick who finished with 29 and 21 points respectively.  As for the rest of the players, see the box-score here.

With this game the Bulls now fall to 10-12 while the Grizzlies had their first three game win streak of the season and improved to 8-15.

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