The Bulls did it. The Bulls have finally done it. With their 122 to 111 victory over the Phoenix Suns tonight, the Bulls have finally won three straight games in a row. This is the Bulls first three game winning streak since their playoff sweep of the Miami Heat in 2007.

Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon led the charge tonight, both scoring 26 points.

Ben Gordon was absolutely fabulous tonight, putting up 26 points and 6 assists. He didn’t handle the ball too much on offense, just shooting when left wide open and shooting in set plays. He was very unselfish with the ball, making some nice passes to set up his teammates for easy scores. It was nice to see Gordon go 5-7 from three after struggling recently from beyond the arc. Hopefully Gordon’s annual winter slump is over and it’s nothing but strong performances from here on out.

Derrick Rose has a good scoring game as well, scoring 26 points, grabbing 6 rebounds, and dishing 4 assists. Rose had a really interesting scoring game. He made a lot of his jumpshots tonight, so a good game should be expected. When Rose hits his jumpshots, he usually has a good scoring game. But tonight was a bit different. Rose was flinging a lot of shots up with one hand, and he was doing this with great success. If Rose can make these flinging floaters a consistent part of his game, he becomes a much more deadlier offensive weapon.

Luol Deng had another strong game. He finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds. He is making about half of his jumpers again, while playing very good defense, and when he does that, he is an important piece of this team. Is it too soon to proclaim that 06-07 Deng is back?

The Bulls had trouble stopping Leandro Barbosa. He tore apart the Bulls for an efficient 32 points. He made his threes when the Bulls left him wide open and scored on some nice cuts to the basket. None of the Bulls guards could slow him down.

The Suns may have made a bit of a mistake in their strategy to hammer the ball into Shaq. Shaq finished with 18 points and 8 rebounds. That is solid production, but you would expect Shaq to have a lot more given how much they fed him the ball. For what it’s worth, Shaq did almost foul all of the Bulls bigs out by himself. Thomas and Noah both had 5 fouls and Aaron Gray had 4 fouls. Shaq fouled out late in the fourth.

The Suns pretty much ignored Amare Stoudemire the entire game. He finished with 12 points and 6 rebounds. He played 43 minutes, but only took 7 shots. This seems like a strange strategy, because Stoudemire is the type of player that could really kill the Bulls front court.

The Bulls bigs didn’t have any great games themselves, but did a respectable job on defense, and held their own against the Suns front court. Noah had 4 points and 8 rebounds, Thomas had 10 points 4 rebounds and 2 blocks.

Steve Nash was a non-factor most of the night. He finished with 15 points and 10 assists, but had 7 turnovers. He was just really sloppy with the ball and looked really old tonight.

Kirk Hinrich had 15 points and 6 assists. He wasn’t much of a factor tonight. The offense ran a lot smoother, as usual, with Rose and Gordon in the game instead of Hinrich.

Andres Nocioni had 11 points on 4-10 shooting. He didn’t really do much else in the game, as his only other positive stat was 1 offensive rebound. There’s not much to say about Nocioni anymore, except that he is a no defense chucker. It is imperative for the Bulls to trade Nocioni, he’s an on court cancer. If he is still around after the deadline, the Bulls need to begin phasing him out of the rotation, in favor of Thabo Sefolosha, who had 11 points as well tonight, but also added in 8 rebounds, 2 assists, a block, and a steal.

Grant Hill had 19 for the Suns and Jason Richardson put in 12 points.

It is nice that the Bulls finally got the monkey off their back regarding the three game winning streak. Hopefully they will have many three game or more winning streaks this season.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 21-27 on the season. They remain 1.5 games out of the 8th spot in the East, as Milwaukee also beat Atlanta tonight.

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Tags: Aaron Gray, Amare Stoudemire, Andres Nocioni, Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, chucker, Derrick Rose, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich, Leandro Barbosa, Luol Deng, Phoenix Suns, Shaquille O'neal, Steve Nash, Thabo Sefolosha, Tyrus Thomas

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 1:35 am 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.