The Chicago Bulls defeated the Washington Wizards 98 to 86 at the United Center for their second straight win.

The Wizards scored the first basket of the game, but the Bulls quickly took the lead and never looked back, jumping to an 18 point lead at the end of the first half. The Bulls went cold in the fourth, allowing Washington to get the game back within single digits, but the Bulls easily fended off the Wizards to escape with the win.

Ben Gordon had a decent game. He finished with 22 points and 5 assists. Gordon scored very efficiently, shooting 9-16, and passed the ball well, but he had a lot of mental lapses in tonights game. Gordon had 3 of his 4 turnovers early in the early minutes of the game, making two passes to no one and getting called for an offensive foul.

Gordon’s hot third quarter kept the Wizards from making this into a close game earlier in the game. Gordon went on a tear to end the third quarter, scoring 11 points in the quarter.

Derrick Rose had a solid game, finishing with 8 points and 9 assists. While Rose was poor scoring wise, he did very well passing the ball. Unlike a lot of games, where he just gets his assists from passing to a jumpshooter who hits a contested jumpshot, tonight, Derrick was actually creating great scoring opportunities for his teammates.

Tyrus Thomas continued his streak of great play. Thomas had 16 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks in the ball game. Thomas is making smart plays on the offensive end of the ball, which has greatly increased his scoring efficiency. On the defensive end of the ball, it looks like that Tyrus from 2006-2007 is back. Thomas is out there altering a lot of shots, and playing some of the best man defense of his career.

Thomas’ frontcourt counterpart, Drew Gooden, put in another nice game. Drew Gooden scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. The Bulls did a lot of pick and pop plays with Gooden, and Gooden knocked down the open jumpshots with ease. With other teams constantly double teaming Rose and Gordon with a big man, a big like Gooden, who can nail down jumpshots, is very valuable to this team. When the Bulls get good production from their front court, they are a much more difficult team to beat.

Nick Young shot the ball great. Young scored 28 points on 12-15 shooting. It didn’t matter if it was Rose, Gordon, or Hughes guarding him, he was scoring no matter what. It’s not like he did anything in particular to burn the Bulls guards, he just made his shots. He was the main reason why the Wizards were able to close the lead a little bit, but the Wizards went away from him, and the Bulls quickly pulled away again.

The Wizards struggled in a large part because Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler both struggled. Antawn Jamison had 12 points on 4-12 shooting and Caron Butler had 2 points on 1-8 shooting. When the Wizards only get 14 points on 5-20 shooting from Jamison/Butler, they’re not going to be winning many ball games.

Larry Hughes came into the game chucking, and really hurt the Bulls in the first half, shooting only 2-7. But in the second half, Hughes started to make some of his shots, and really helped the Bulls build their lead back to 20+ points. Hughes finished the game with 17 points.

Joakim Noah was really active when in the game, getting 6 points and 7 rebounds in 22 minutes. Noah’s problem is that he doesn’t have the necessary strength to bang with NBA centers and lacks the athleticism and instincts to be a great shotblocker. When Noah is in the game, he gives up a lot defensively, and for the most part, struggles offensively. Tonight wasn’t really one of those nights given Washington’s lack of quality big men.

Mike James had 11 points for the Wizards.

A win is always good, but the Bulls should be beating a team as bad as the Wizards by more than 12 points. There is no reason that the Bulls should have let Washington creep back into the game.

Andres Nocioni left the game with an injury in the first half, but returned in the second half.

Wizards head coach Ed Tapscott was ejected from the game after screaming at the refs about a carrying violation after the Wizards blew a 2 on 1 fastbreak.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 16-20 on the season.

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Tags: Andres Nocioni, Antawn Jamison, Ben Gordon, Caron Butler, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, Ed Tapscott, Joakim Noah, Larry Hughes, Mike James, Nick Young, Tyrus Thomas, Washington Wizards

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 10:11 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.