The Chicago Bulls lost to the Atlanta Hawks 113 to 108 yesterday at the United Center.

The Bulls were completely outmatched inside. Al Horford finished with 27 points and 17 rebounds and got offensive rebounds at will. Zaza Pachulia contribued 12 points and 8 rebounds to help set the Hawks inside dominance early on.

Joakim Noah finished with 2 points and 8 rebounds. This was Noah’s first start of the season. Aaron Gray was solid, finishing with 6 points and 10 rebounds in 17 minutes. Tyrus Thomas was again awful, finishing with 3 points and 5 rebounds. Thomas is going to need to ride the pine once Gooden comes back, because this type of play is unacceptable.

The Bulls got good production from the 1-3 positions. Derrick Rose was dominant at times, scoring 26 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and dishing 6 assists. Rose was able to get in to the lane at will, although he had some trouble getting some of his layups up with an intimidating presence like Al Horford resting in the paint. Rose had 3 of his shot attempts blocked. Rose also struggled defensively, allowing Bibby to get open for momentuous three point field goals.

Ben Gordon was solid finishing with 19 points and 4 assists. For Gordon, who shot 8-20, it was a game of quarters. Gordon scored well in the first half and fourth quarter but was horrible in the third quarter. Gordon put up a series of airballs and bricks in the third quarter before getting pulled. He will need to go back to the Berto Center and just put up a ton of shots to recalibrate his shot.

Gordon played great defense on Joe Johnson, limiting him to 17 points on 4-16 shooting.

The Bulls got good production from the small forward position. Andres Nocioni finished with 20 points. Nocioni has clearly adjusted to playing with Derrick Rose and knows how to get open for three. Luol Deng had 19 points and 10 rebounds. Deng was making his jumpshot with more regularity and was cutting to the basket very nicely.

The Bulls next game is Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks at the United Center.

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Tags: Aaron Gray, Al Horford, Andres Nocioni, Atlanta Hawks, Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, Joakim Noah, Joe Johnson, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, United Center, Zaza Pachulia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.