The Oklahoma City Thunder struck down the Chicago Bulls 98-85 at the United Center tonight.

The Bulls looked good early on, but fell apart in the second half, only scoring 33 points, some of which were giveaway scores by the Thunder in the final minutes of the game, when they already had assured the victory.

The Bulls problem was that they had a complete inability to score in the half court. A large part of this was a result of the Thunder playing great half court defense. The Thunder’s half court defense was stifling. They closed out on shooters well, and packed the lane with big men waiting for charges, which slowed the Bulls penetration game.

But the other problem is that the Bulls have no one that can really create their own shot in the half court against tough defense. They had one of those players last year in Ben Gordon, and it looks like they will need to find a new one in free agency this summer, so that outcomes like tonight’s game don’t become a common scene. Derrick Rose is still easy to stop because of his lack of range, which allows the defense to pack it in, allowing most good teams to shut down his driving lanes. Surrounded by poor shooters, the Bulls can’t make opponents pay when they overplay Rose defensively, as the Bulls miss these jumpshots all too often, and in this game in particular, the Thunder did a great job closing out on shooters, not allowing the Bulls to take easy jumpshots.

The Thunder were led by Russell Westbrook who had 29 points, 6 assists, and 7 rebounds. Westbrook was a real handful, and Rose did a poor job guarding him. Westbrook scored early on by penetrating and scoring around the basket, but later in the game, he was scoring on some laxly guarded jumpshots that the Bulls were giving him.

Derrick Rose conversely had 19 points on 9-20 shooting, along with 7 assists. The Thunder did a good job contesting Rose’s drives to the baskets, which forced Rose into scoring inefficiently tonight. Rose continued to attack the basket aggressively, which drew the defense with him, opening up some easy offensive rebounding opportunities for his teammate. The Bulls snatched up an impressive 25 offensive rebounds tonight, many of which came on Rose’s misses. That is rebounding on 39% of their misses, which is impressive.

The Thunder also got a lot of help from their other star, Kevin Durant, who finished with 25 points. Durant was silky smooth scoring the ball, although he had some ball handling issues which led to his 6 turnovers, but overall, he played great.

Luol Deng had a double double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, although he scored the ball inefficiently. Joakim Noah also had a double double with 14 points and 14 rebounds. Taj Gibson fell short of the double double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Gibson played well early in the game, but did little in the second half, although neither did any of his teammates.

Kirk Hinrich continued his good play since returning to the starting lineup scoring 15 points along with 7 assists. One has to wonder whether Hinrich’s poor play early on was a result of him putting himself in a mental funk because he was sulking because he had to come off the bench. Hinrich played fine off the bench last year, so being uncomfortable coming off the bench leading to his poor play is unlikely.

James Harden had 13 points off the bench for the Thunder, hitting many timely threes. The former Bull, Thabo Sefolosha, finished with 7 points and 9 rebounds.

John Salmons struggled, shooting 1-8, as did Tyrus Thomas, who shot 3-12.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 14-18 on the season.

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Tags: Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, James Harden, Joakim Noah, Kevin Durant, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Oklahoma City Thunder, Russell Westbrook, Taj Gibson, Thabo Sefolosha

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.