The Chicago Bulls fell to the Memphis Grizzlies 103 to 96 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, TN.

The Bulls had the same problem that they always do, their front court was pathetic. Gooden had a solid stat game, finishing with 10 points and 13 rebounds, but his defense was atrocious as usual.

Darko Milicic had 13 points and Marc Gasol added in 11 points. Hakim Warrick ate up the Bulls inside on his way to a 21 point game. Rudy Gay and Michael Conley took advantage of the Bulls soft interior defense as well, driving to the basket. Rudy Gay finished with 29 points.

Ben Gordon was the Bulls’ best player. Gordon got off to a great start, scoring 18 points in the first quarter. However, he picked up his third foul early in the second quarter and only played 8 minutes in the first half. With Gordon on the bench, the Grizzlies fought their way back into the game and the Bulls never quite recovered. Gordon finished with 26 points on 8-15 shooting. The best part about Gordon’s game tonight was his 7 of 11 shooting from three point land. Gordon has struggled with his three point shot for most of the season, so if Gordon gets back to his usual great three point shooting, the Bulls will be much more difficult to beat than they currently have been.

Derrick Rose had a solid game, scoring 12 points and 11 assists. Rose was never able to take over scoring wise, but the Bulls added a new wrinkle into their offense, and that is the return to drive and kick basketball. Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon were very effective tonight in the kick and drive offense, Rose passing it to Gordon and Gordon converting for three.

One of the Bulls problems was that Luol Deng took too many shots in the fourth. It seemed as though Rose and Gordon hardly had the ball in their hands in the fourth to create offense. Luol Deng still had a solid game offensively, scoring 19 points on 7-17 shooting. Not great, but better than what he was doing. Deng had a lot of trouble guarding Rudy Gay and Hakim Warrick though.

Larry Hughes had another solid game, scoring 12 points on 4-7 shooting and playing within the offense for the most part.

The Bulls need to address the front court problem asap. They are not getting good offense, defense, or rebounding from the front court, which makes it clear that changes need to be made. When Michael Ruffin is back from his injury, they should work him into the rotation. Also, I would like to see if Thabo Sefolosha could play the power forward similar to Boris Diaw in Phoenix a few years ago. Sefolosha has always been a good rebounder, and his long arms might make this possible. Sefolosha could potentially create some mismatches offensively at the power forward position.

O.J. Mayo didn’t have a very good game, scoring only 14 points on 5-14 shooting. He was completely embarrassed by Ben Gordon in the first quarter on the defensive end. Mayo also struggled offensively. This was probably the result of having to expound extra energy to slow down Ben Gordon, as Mayo picked up his defense substantially in the second half.

With this loss, the Bulls fall to 10-12 on the season.

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Tags: Ben Gordon, Boris Diaw, Chicago Bulls, Darko Milicic, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, FedEx Forum, Hakim Warrick, kick and drive, Memphis Grizzlies, Michael Conley, O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, Thabo Sefolosha

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 8:42 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.