The Chicago Bulls failed to extend their three game winning streak to four in Houston tonight, losing 107 to 100 to the Houston Rockets.

This loss falls squarely on Vinny Del Negro and some weird coaching decisions. The biggest blunder was not bringing Aaron Gray to match up with Yao Ming after Joakim Noah fouled in. Instead, Vinny left a front court of Tyrus Thomas and Andres Nocioni in the game, which resulted in Yao Ming posting up Andres Nocioni on a few posessions. Vinny dared Houston to go inside to Yao Ming and Houston did, with great results.

The second blunder was leaving Kirk Hinrich in over Ben Gordon for more than half of the fourth quarter. This is just a matter of Vinny not knowing his own team. Kirk Hinrich has rarely done anything in the fourth quarter during his career. He was one of the worst clutch players in the NBA last year, while Gordon was one of the best. Sure, Ben was having a poor game, but time and time again, the Bulls had Ben Gordon explode in the fourth quarter after a poor first three quarters. (Pretty much every game during his rookie year, for example).

And Ben Gordon did just that when he actually did get into the game, scoring 8 points in a 1 minute 22 second stretch. It was good that the Bulls were able to close the gap some, even though they ultimately came up short. A 7 point loss is a lot better than the blowout that the Bulls were on course to suffer.

For Gordon, the game was a story of spurts. Ben Gordon came into the game shooting cold…had a hot streak to end the second quarter and to start the third quarter. Missed a few shots on some drives to the basket, then came back in late in the fourth and got hot again. Gordon finished with 20 points and 6 rebounds. Not too great of a night for him. He needs to be able to score more consistently throughout the course of the game.

Luol Deng was absolutely outstanding. He was scoring by making jumpshots and driving to the basket. Deng shot 8 free throws tonight. Deng finished with 28 points and 6 rebounds. Since coming back from injury, Deng has looked very aggressive. if Deng continues to play like he has been as of late, he will be doing plenty to fulfill his contract.

The Rockets front court absolutely destroyed the Bulls. Yao Ming had 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 blocks. The Bulls were completely overmatched by Yao’s size the entire night, although it was nice to see the Bulls attack Yao early in the game, and draw some early fouls on Yao. Luis Scola had 13 points and 18 rebounds. He gave the Bulls trouble on the boards.

The Bulls front court didn’t do terrible, they’re just overmatched talent and size wise. Tyrus Thomas had a really nice game, finishing with 14 points 13 rebounds 4 assists and 3 blocks. He was very active tonight, and gave the Bulls great help defense. Aaron Gray and Joakim Noah didn’t fare very well, but they were guarding Yao Ming for most of the game, and they’re just overmatched size and talent wise.

Derrick Rose had a nice little 12 points 7 assists and 7 rebounds game. Rose is really having difficulty scoring the ball efficiently as a result of his lack of three point shot and inability to get to the free throw line. Once again tonight, Rose had a sub-50 TS% night. He will have to evolve his offensive game in order to become the efficient scorer that the Bulls need.

Tracy McGrady had 16 points and 6 assists for the Rockets. Ron Artest had 10 points and 6 assists.

Kirk Hinrich had 10 points and 4 assists. He really was a non-factor. There is a big drop off in ball movement when Hinrich is in the game and Rose is not.

Andres Nocioni had 11 points on 4-9 shooting, but did not have a good game. As usual, Nocioni played little defense and played stupidly. One such instance was when Nocioni committed a foul as Houston was getting set to call a timeout.

Aaron Brooks exploded for 18 points off the bench. The Bulls left him open for three too often.

With this loss, the Chicago Bulls drop to 21-28 on the season.

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Tags: Aaron Brooks, Aaron Gray, Andres Nocioni, Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Houston Rockets, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich, Luis Scola, Luol Deng, Ron Artest, Tracy McGrady, Tyrus Thomas, Vinny Del Negro, Yao Ming

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 11:46 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.