The Chicago Bulls defeated the Sacramento Kings 109 to 88 in Sacramento tonight, winning their second game in a row.
There really isn’t a whole lot to analyze in this game, other than that Sacramento is a horrible basketball team. (They are currently ranked last in our power rankings).
The Kings made Derrick Rose’s job tonight very easy. They played poor defense on the Bulls bigs, allowing Rose to find them for many easy dunks and a foray of alley oops. Rose finished the game with 4 points and 11 assists. Normally, a game where Derrick only has 4 points would be railed on, but tonight he just facilitated in setting up other guys offense.
Luol Deng had another nice night, finishing with 20 points on 9-15 shooting and 7 rebounds. This guy is playing good basketball once again, looks like the 06-07 Deng is back. Since coming back from injury he has been on a tear and I think it all starts with his jumpshot. He is making his jumpshots once again, and all of a sudden he is looking like a fringe allstar again. With his recent stretch of good play, Deng pretty much guarantees that the Bulls will not include him in any trade, or potentially better, it might tantalize a team like the Raptors to consider giving up Chris Bosh, who they are likely to lose in 2010 free agency, in exchange for Deng. It is good to have a reason to like Luol Deng again. Hopefully he keeps up this good play.
Ben Gordon had a nice game, particularly a nice second half. Gordon had a tough run in the first half, scoring only 3 points as he picked up 3 quick fouls. But Gordon put in 17 points in the second half to finish with 20 in the game. It waas nice to see Gordon hitting his shots with more consistency tonight. Hopefully the shooting slump is over for Gordon.
The Bulls front court duo looked really good tonight. Joakim Noah had 17 points 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. Tyrus Thomas had 14 points 10 rebounds 3 steals and 2 blocks. It is really nice to see these two doing what Bulls fans knew they could do. They are active defensively, getting blocks and steals. They’re beginning to put in more of the easy attempts that our guards set them up for with more consistency. WIth these two playing so well together, Paxson will have to strongly consider trading Drew Gooden at the trade deadline, or at the very least, have Vinny bring Gooden off the bench when he comes back from injury.
Kirk Hinrich added in 11 points and 7 assists and Andres Nocioni had 10 points.
Kevin Martin tore the Bulls apart as usual, scoring 27 points. John Salmons added in 16 points.
Jason Thompson, the rookie out of Rider, looked really nice tonight. He reminds me a bit of Tyrus Thomas as an energy player. Thompson made his living tonight through hustle plays. He finished the game with 15 points and 12 rebounds.
With the win, the Bulls improve to 20-27 on the season. They are 1.5 games behind Milwaukee for the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.