John Salmons' Health/Role in the Boston Series

I was wondering what your opinions were on John Salmons for this series? On one hand, he is obviously hampered by the groin injury. He has not been the same player during the past 5 games than he was for the 6 weeks immediately after the trade. But here is the part that does not make sense to me that I was hoping you all could weigh in on: theoretically, a groin injury should affect Salmons athletic ability. More specifically, it should affect his ability to stay in front of his man on defense, his first step on offense, etc. It should significantly less affect his outside shot. If that is the case, what is going on with Salmons outside jumper? For the Bulls to prevail in this series, we need Salmons to continue to play the defense on Pierce that he did on Saturday, but we also need him to hit the 3 ball like he did earlier. What is going on with his outside shot right now? He has missed several wide open jumpers lately.

Re:John Salmons' Health/Rolse in the Boston Series

I think being in pain can alter your game in any number of ways. Certainly the lateral movement would be the worst, but if you're in pain when trying to push off and lift it's probably tough to score.

That being said, many shooters just go through tough stretches, and Salmons could be having a tough stretch aggravated by some extra pain and discomfort.

Yeah, that makes sense. As much as I wish that Salmons' jumper would come back, I really appreciated the defense that he played on Pierce in game 1. We have been waiting for a guy that is a legit 6'6"+ for a long time. It seems like ever since Hinrich got here, he have always been outmatched on talent and size when we played VC, Kobe, Pierce, etc. Now, we have at least reversed the size part, though not the talent. I really like what Salmons brings to the table and his defense on Pierce will be invaluable if he can keep it up. He is proving to me right now that he is a gutsy player that is interested in winning and doing whatever it takes to accomplish that. If his jumper can just be decent, not necessarily as good as it was a month ago, the Bulls should be in good shape.