The best rookie in tonight’s game wasn’t Derrick Rose, but instead someone named George Hill. As you might imagine, with that reality, the Bulls lost tonight. The San Antonio Spurs downed the Bulls 98 to 86.

George Hill finished the game with 19 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists. Derrick Rose had trouble staying in front of Hill and when Gooden was at center, Hill met little to no resistance at the rim, allowing him to score easily.

The other rookie, Derrick Rose, finished the game with 10 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds.

Ben Gordon was the Bulls best player tonight, scoring 23 points on 9-16 FG, grabbing 5 rebounds, and dishing 3 assists. Gordon caught fire in the third to give the Bulls a small lead. However, against the San Antonio Spurs, you need multiple players to step up, as the Spurs are great at making in-game adjustments. The Spurs shifted the defensive focus to Gordon, meeting him with double teams, and no one else bothered to step up, causing the Bulls offense to stagnate for the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth quarter.

That is where the Bulls have problems with one of their top players being a rookie. Derrick Rose has been great so far this season, but he isn’t going to be able to step up every game, and this was one of those games where Rose didn’t step up and take over, only scoring 2 points in the second half. Rose by no means had a bad game, he just didn’t have a great game.

Larry Hughes was also a big component in our loss. Hughes finished the game with 8 points onf 4-14 shooting. Hughes wasn’t taking bad shots, they were all good looks, he just has trouble making his shots whether they are bad looks or good looks.

Andres Nocioni was dreadful tonight. He had 5 points on 2-6 shooting, and had a costly sequence where he got a flagrant foul and followed it up by a technical.

Drew Gooden had a solid game, scoring 20 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Unfortunately, Gooden’s interior defense was soft, and his help defense was non-existent.

Tim Duncan had 21 points and 8 rebounds. The game from Duncan was a lot better than it looks, as he let the other Spurs take over in the 2nd half. Duncan had 18 of his 21 points in the first half.

The Bulls played sloppy in the 2nd half. The Bulls only had 4 turnovers in the first half and played a nice controlled game. In the 2nd half, the Bulls turned the ball over 9 times.

Manu Ginobili had 15 points, and scored effectively for the Spurs.

Luol Deng had 10 points in the game on 4-7 shooting. That is a good indication that the Bulls might get something out of Deng in the future, but most of his scoring was in garbage time.

The Bulls are now 2-4 on the circus trip and 7-9 on the season. The Spurs are now 8-6 on the season.

The Bulls next game is against the Philadelphia 76ers.

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Tags: Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Circus Trip, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, George Hill, Larry Hughes, Luol Deng, Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan, turnovers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 9:17 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.