The Bulls fell to the Hawks tonight at the United Center 105 to 102 to extend their losing streak to three games. The Hawks were without Al Horford.

Much has been made about Kirk Hinrich coming back and rejuvenating the Bulls, but this is not the truth. The honeymoon is over, as the Bulls stand at 2-4 since Kirk Hinrich has returned, worse than they usually do. But it’s time to get back to what was working best for the Bulls earlier in the season, and that is putting the ball in Derrick Rose’s and Ben Gordon’s hands for large portions of the game.

Vinny has allowed Gordon very little offensive freedom since Hinrich has come back, while letting Rose keep his license to do anything he wants on offense. This is the wrong approach, as the Bulls problem was never with what Gordon was doing, it is what Derrick Rose has been doing. For the entire month of January, Derrick Rose has scored the ball very inefficiently. Ben Gordon was fine in January, until Kirk Hinrich came back. Since Hinrich has come back, Ben Gordon has been inconsistent in a large part because of Vinny changing his role.

The approach Vinny should have taken was to have Ben Gordon keep doing what he does best, scoring, while working with Derrick to bring up his scoring efficiency.

A large part of why the Bulls are struggling since Hinrich came back is Vinny’s insistence to play Kirk Hinrich in the fourth quarter. Vinny needs to read a scouting report on his own team, because if he did, he would realize Kirk Hinrich is one of the worst clutch players in the league. Hinrich rarely contributes in the clutch and to force a three guard lineup in the fourth to get Hinrich on the court, who shouldn’t be there in the first place, is boneheaded coaching by Vinny.

Ben Gordon led the Bulls tonight with 21 points. Gordon struggled with turnovers early in the game, committing 3 turnovers in the first quarter. Gordon cleaned up his ball handling after that, only committing one turnover that was his fault for the rest of the game, finishing with 5 turnovers total. For some reason, the Bulls called Gordon’s numbers few times early in the game. Then in the fourth, the light switched on in Gordon’s head, and he seemed to decide to take over the game himself. Gordon was just terrific down the stretch, scoring 15 points in the final 14 minutes. Why the Bulls didn’t look to him earlier is behind my comprehension.

Derrick Rose had a rather poor outing. Given his lack of three point prowess, Rose needs to make a greater percentage of his shots than he currently is to be an efficient scorer. Rose finished the game with 13 points on 6-13 shooting. Not one of his worse outings scoring the ball this month, but the Bulls need much more out of Rose if they want to be a good team.

The defense that Rose played on Mike Bibby was rather poor. Mike Bibby lit the Bulls up for 31 points and 6 assists. Bibby wasn’t just lighting up Rose though. Kirk Hinrich also got lit up by Bibby, often getting lost, leaving Bibby open for three.

Mike Bibby was an absolute thief tonight, stealing the ball five times.

Kirk Hinrich had a solid game. His scoring was alright, as he poured in 13 points on 5-11 shooting. Hinrich did have 8 assists in the game. Hinrich made some nice dishes to teammates to set them up for shots. Hinrich needs to step his defense back up to the levels it was at during the Cavaliers and Spurs games, otherwise it’s hard to justify playing Hinrich 35 minutes when you have such talented guards in Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose on the team.

Luol Deng had an awful scoring game, going 6-16 shooting, en route to a 12 point game. Deng rebounded the ball well, grabbing 10 rebounds, and dished out 5 assists. Deng played some nice defense on Joe Johnson tonight. Johnson only scored 16 points on 5-18 shooting, but did pass for 8 assists.

Flip Murray was bothered by Ben Gordon for a lot of the game, only scoring 13 points on 4-13 shooting.

The Bulls did a poor job guarding Atlanta’s big men, giving up 17 points and 14 rebounds to Josh Smith and 18 points to Zaza Pachulia.

Tyrus Thomas had 4 blocks, but did little else in the game, being a bit of a negative force on the court. Joakim Noah just missed a double double, putting up 9 points and 11 rebounds.

Andres Nocioni had a good game, scoring 15 points on 5-10 shooting along with 8 rebounds. Hopefully Nocioni can have a few more games like tis to raise his trade value.

Tonight’s game was Larry Hughes’ fifth straight DNP - Coach’s Decision. The Bulls are actively working to trade Hughes.

With this loss, the Bulls fall to 18-25 on the season.

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Tags: Andres Nocioni, Atlanta Hawks, Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, DNP - Coach's Decision, Flip Murray, Joakim Noah, Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Kirk Hinrich, Larry Hughes, Luol Deng, Mike Bibby, thief, Tyrus Thomas, Vinny Del Negro, Zaza Pachulia

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 11:57 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.