Taj Gibson Embarrassed to Lose to “Trash Teams” like the Knicks

The Knicks swept the Bulls this week in a home-and-home series, and Taj Gibson is embarrassed to be losing to “trash teams”.

This week the New York Knicks defeated the Chicago Bulls in back-to-back games, sweeping the home-and-home series.

Chicago forward Taj Gibson after being swept was very upset about the losses, as per Nick Friedell of ESPN.

"“Hell yeah, I’m embarrassed”“I take pride in wearing this jersey. I love wearing the Bulls jersey. Especially what we’ve been through, I take pride in playing for Chicago. When I wear that jersey, I try to go out there and play my heart out. And it’s frustrating when we come up short, and we look at ourselves, we’re losing to … I don’t want to criticize any[body], [but] trash teams. Everybody’s in the NBA for a reason, but we’re playing against teams that are not playing for anything, and we’re just laying down. It feels like now we’re a target. It feels like teams are not taking us serious.”“Teams are more eager to play us. [In years prior,] it was vice versa. They knew we were coming in to punch people in the face and keep playing. It’s just, it’s hard, man. It really eats me up inside. It’s really hard to sleep at night knowing it’s coming down to the wire, and our effort isn’t there. It’s really frustrating.”"

According to NBA.com, teams should be eager to play the Bulls! Ranking sixth-best in opponent field goal percentage at 43.9% for the overall season, BUT ranking eighth-worst in opponent field goal percentage for the month of March at 47.1%.

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Chicago are also allowing a lot more three-pointers in the month of March, as evidenced in the two games against New York this week. The Knicks shot lights outs from beyond the arc, something that is quite usual… being in the lower tier of teams at converting three-pointers. The Bulls held opponent to 33.9% three-point shooting, sixth-best in the league for the overall season. For the month of March, the Bulls are the third-worst team in the league at opponent three-point shooting at 38.8%, as per NBA.com.

Something has changed in Chicago, for the worse… and the losing has taken a toll on Gibson.

"“Tonight, I’ve never been so frustrated and mad before,”“It was disappointing, man, just real disappointing. I’m just tired of having these same talks with [the media] every night. About how we got to do better. … [Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg’s] right. We got to look ourselves [in the mirror]. I look at myself in the mirror every night, and I try to do different things every night. Still got how many more games left? We’ve got 11 more games left. It’s really do or die, and it’s really frustrating. We got to want it. We got to want it. Sometimes I feel we want it, sometimes I don’t know if we’re kidding ourselves or not.”"

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The Bulls are definitely just kidding themselves at this point… with the Wednesday night loss to the Knicks, Chicago fell out of the Playoffs. After the debacle Thursday night, from a team that supposedly should be desperately fighting for their Playoffs lives… the Bulls became 1.5 games back of the eighth-seeded Detroit Pistons. With the Pistons winning Friday night, the Bulls are now two games back from Playoffs contention…

Gibson understands that the Bulls have new players and system, but feels that they still need to perform at a higher level.

"“It’s a new system, a totally new system,”“And we got a bunch of young guys, new guys, and it’s just completely different personnel. But like he said, we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror, everybody has to be accountable. Like Jimmy [Butler] said before, nobody cares if you’re hurt, nobody’s going to care about anything. The only thing people are going to worry about is if you’re on that court and you’re doing your job. So we just got to do our job.”"

Gibson says flat-out the Bulls just need to be better, that the team needs to take more pride in what they do for the remainder of the season.

"“At times, I think we lose track of what we’re playing for. We’re not just playing for ourselves — we’re playing for the city of Chicago, and we’re playing to wear that ‘Bulls’ across our chest. And it’s frustrating because over the last couple years, we’ve just been one of those teams … we took pride in everything we did. And we can’t kid ourselves. We just got to do better. We got, what, 11 more games left? And I’m still going to be positive because all we ever talk about is negative, negativity in our press conference. ‘We need to do this, we’re soft, we’re this,’ and at the end of the day everybody is a man, and everybody has to do better, including myself.”"

New York forward Derrick Williams took exception to Gibson calling the Knicks a “trash team”, posting on his personal Instagram account “We beat y’all 3 out of 4 times. Trash teams ? Cuuuuuuut ittttttttt”

Next: Pending Free Agents to Monitor Until Season’s End

I disagree with Williams, I believe the Knicks are a trash team, look no further than New York’s record for evidence. Nonetheless the Knicks did play spoiler to the Bulls’ season and Playoffs chances, so that’s something. I guess… -_-“