The Chicago Bulls defeated the Sacramento Kings 99 to 95 to snap their three game losing streak.

The Bulls, in particular, Drew Gooden, did all they could to throw away the game.  Gooden missed free throws on two straight trips to the line to give Sacramento a chance to win it.  Unfortunately for the Kings, Kevin Martin was very unclutch.

Martin first missed the first of three free throws, making it a two point game instead of a potential oen point game.  Martin then missed a free throw with the Kings down two.  Brad Miller got the offensive rebound and passed it to Kevin Martin, who shortarmed a short jumper.  Then with the Kings down by three with about 9 seconds left, Martin passed up a three and instead drove to the hoop missing a layup.

Ben Gordon led the Bulls in scoring, finishing with a quiet 24 points.  Ben Gordon was a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line.  The Kings had a tough time keeping with Gordon, and had to resort to fouling him to keep him from scoring.  Gordon took notice of this and relentlessly attacked the basket.  Gordon’s three point shooting has been a little off lately.  He has been consistently making his corner threes, but has been struggling with the longer three point shots.  Gordon also had 2 blocks in the game.

Derrick Rose looked nice tonight, picking apart the weak Sacramento defense.  Rose finished the game with 16 points and 8 assists.  The Kings don’t have any good shotblockers, so Rose was able to make most of his close shots with ease.

Kevin Martin had an okay game for the Kings.  Martin had 29 points in the game but was plagued by 7 turnovers and very unclutch play.  Late in the fourth, Martin tweaked his ankle on a three point shot, and never seemed to play well after that.

The Bulls got Drew Gooden back from injury tonight.  Gooden had a solid game, scoring 18 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.  What Gooden brings to the Bulls is a legit NBA body.  He has the strength to bang with NBA big men, something Noah lacks, and the athleticism to keep with them, something Gray lacks.  While playing a power forward like Gooden heavy minutes at the center spot is not ideal, it is the best option the Bulls currently have.

The Bulls got another good game out of Tyrus Thomas.  He finished with 14 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals.  Thomas had 2 poster dunks tonight.  One of them was off of a rolling pass from Thabo Sefolosha for an alley-oop.  Thomas still struggles at finishing when he doesn’t have the clear dunk, but he really is generating some nice looks for himself by driving to the basket.

Brad Miller looked good tonight for the Kings, finishing with 18 points, 12 rebounds, and 2 assists.  The Bulls are going to need to look into trading for Miller at the trade deadline.  He would be a good steady big man presence for the Bulls over the next 2 years, and would help in becoming players for 2010 as long as we unloaded Kirk Hinrich or Andres Nocioni.

Larry Hughes had 10 points.  John Salmons added in 12 points for his team.

Andres Nocioni was atrocious tonight, scoring 3 points on 1-11 shooting.  However, he is rocking a nice new haircut.

The Bulls made their first 29 free throws of the game.  They then missed 3 of their last 7 free throws.

With the win tonight, the Bulls improve to 15-20 on the season.

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Tags: Andres Nocioni, atrocious, Ben Gordon, Brad Miller, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, free throws, haircut, John Salmons, Kevin Martin, Larry Hughes, Sacramento Kings, trade

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 9:25 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.