The Chicago Bulls defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 110-96 at the United Center tonight, ending the Bulls three game losing streak.

The Bulls opened up a double digit lead on the Timberwolves in the third quarter, and coasted to an easy victory.

Joakim Noah led the Bulls, scoring 20 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Kirk Hinrich also scored 20 points and dished 7 assists. The most encouraging thing about Hinrich’s performance tonight was that he went 4-9 from three point shooting. If guys like Hinrich and Salmons start hitting their three point shots again, the Bulls will find it much easier to win.

Taj Gibson also had a nice game, finishing with 13 points an 9 rebounds. Gibson started the struggling with his shot, but he found his stroke after having a shot bounce off the top of the backboard and into the basket. This game helps to further cement Gibson’s spot in the starting lineup with this performance, and Tyrus Thomas’ struggling performance. Thomas does a lot of positives on the court, finishing with 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 steals, but he continuously screws himself out of a starting spot by mixing the good with a lot of bad, boneheaded plays, as evidenced by his 6 turnovers tonight.

The Bulls got good performances off the bench from Brad Miller and John Salmons. Brad Miller finished with 12 points and 5 rebounds. Miller has been having a lot of success with his slow motion drives the past few games. John Salmons had 14 points on 6-10 shooting.

James Johnson also had a pretty good game. Nothing eye popping, as he finished with 6 points on 2-2 shooting, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists, but it was still the best that he’s looked in a game this year in my opinion. He showed flashes of his talents in leading some Bulls’ fastbreaks.

Derrick Rose finished with 8 points and 7 assists, and Luol Deng also finished with 8 points.

For the Timberwolves, Johnny Flynn had 14 points and 8 assists, and Corey Brewer and Al Jefferson scored 12 points each. Kevin Love had 9 points and 10 rebounds.

Ryan Gomes led the Timberwolves in scoring with 15 points off the bench.

The Bulls did what they were supposed to do tonight in taking care of business against a terrible Minnesota Timberwolves teams. The only team worse than the Timberwolves are the Nets, so this is the type of game that is a must win, and the Bulls did that tonight.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 15-20 on the season.

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Tags: Al Jefferson, Brad Miller, Chicago Bulls, Corey Brewer, Derrick Rose, James Johnson, Joakim Noah, John Salmons, Johnny Flynn, Kevin Love, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Minnesota Timberwolves, Ryan Gomes, Taj Gibson, Tyrus Thomas

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 12:11 am 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.