The Charlotte Bobcats defeated the Chicago Bulls 113-108 in Charlotte tonight, because of the Bulls’ inability to make shots in the clutch.

The biggest culprit of anti-clutchness was probably Kirk Hinrich, who missed a wide open three that would have put the Bulls up 108-107, and followed that up by missing an open midrange jumper with 25.9 seconds left, which would have tied the game at 107.

The Bulls were forced to foul after the Hinrich miss, and Raymond Felton made two free throws to put the Bobcats up 109-105. But John Salmons came back the other way, converting on an and one to make it a one point game. The Bulls were forced to foul, and the Bobcats converted both free throws, going up three.

The Bulls gave the ball to John Salmons to hoist up the potential game tying shot. Salmons slowly dribbled across the top of the key, deciding to hoist a jumper. In mid jump, Salmons realized he was taking a ridiculously stupid shot, and made a bailout pass to Derrick Rose, who bricked a wide open three. But the Bulls got another chance, as Kirk Hinrich tipped the ball out to Salmons, who also missed a three, guaranteeing the Bulls their second straight loss.

The Bulls problem in this game was their complete inability to shutdown the Bobcats four main perimeter players. Gerald Wallace did the most damage, scoring a season high 32 points on 76.8 TS%. Flip Murray came in and did major damage off the bench, scoring 25 points on 82.9 TS%.

Stephen Jackson had 25 points, experiencing a lot of success posting up Kirk Hinrich. Raymond Felton had 15 points and 6 assists.

For the Bulls, Derrick Rose led the Bulls back into the game down the stretch. Rose finished with an efficient 24 points and 9 assists. Turnovers plagued Rose once again, as he committed 7, but his positives far outweighed that negative tonight.

John Salmons gave the Bulls a big lift off the bench, scoring 19 points on 7-12 shooting. Luol Deng scored 18 points, but he took 17 shots to do it.

Kirk Hinrich shot poorly, scoring 12 points on 4-13 shooting, including his two big clutch misses.

Joakim Noah finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 14-19 on the season.

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Tags: Charlotte Bobcats, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Flip Muray, Gerald Wallace, Joakim Noah, John Salmons, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Raymond Felton, Stephen Jackson

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 8:49 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.