The Chicago Bulls defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 86-85 in Cleveland last night.

The game looked like it was going to set up for a Cavs win. Luol Deng missed a shot, which the refs ruled to be an airball, which led to a 24 second violation and the Cavs getting the ball back with a few seconds remaining. The replay showed that the shot probably hit the rim. We were going to see the same story we’ve seen many times before, Lebron drives to the basket, refs call a foul, and the Cavs win.

So on the very next play, Lebron James drives left to the basket, being bodied up by Luol Deng. Joakim Noah then came over to help, and Lebron lost the ball out of bounds.

This was defense executed to perfection. You had Deng not giving into Lebron, staying between himself and the basket, leading Lebron into the defensive wall, preventing Lebron from getting to the rim in Joakim Noah.

It is defense like this for why the Bulls beat the Cavs, and defense like this for why the Bulls are 3-2. The defensive improvement has come entirely from the front court. Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and Brad Miller have been making smart rotations on defense, and have played the pick and roll well.

Derrick Rose had an alright game tonight, scoring 14 points and dishing 11 assists. His passing was impressive, and he set up many of his teammates for easy looks. However, he is still scoring the ball very poorly, as he took 15 shots to get his 14 points tonight.

Luol Deng finished the game with 15 points and 7 rebounds. He had a rough night scoring the ball, taking 16 shots to score his 15 points, but he did a good job on the boards, and did a solid job of defending Lebron James, which is no easy task.

John Salmons scored 14 points in the game on 6-13 shooting. Again, efficient scoring was a problem with him, as he didn’t make a lot of three pointers, and didn’t get to the line much. Additionally, John Salmons last point came with 5:58 remaining in the third quarter.

Taj Gibson gave the points 11 points and 7 rebounds, and Joakim Noah put up 7 points and 11 rebounds.

Kirk Hinrich had a solid 9 points, 6 rebound, 4 assists game and Brad Miller added in 10 points.

For the Cavs, Lebron James continued his excellent play, finishing with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. Anderson Varejao put in 12 points and 13 rebounds, and Shaquille O’neal had 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks. Mo Williams and Anthony Parker had 11 points a piece.

The Cavs offense just hasn’t been the same ever since they lost their offensive guru, John Keuster, to the Detroit Pistons this offseason.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 3-2 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls had another matinee game today against the Toronto Raptors today. This one was on the road.

It looked like the same road weary Bulls as usual, as they fell behind early. But behind clutch play of Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose, as well as the contributions of Kirk Hinrich, Tyrus Thomas, and Brad Miller, the Bulls were able to fight back into the game.

With the Bulls down 116 to 115 with 19 seconds left, Ben Gordon took a quick shot to try to give the Bulls the lead. He missed off back iron and Rose got the rebound and missed an easy layup. Tyrus Thomas then proceeded to be blocked.

The Bulls fouled Jose Calderon, who made two free throws to make it a 118 to 115 Raptors lead. The Raptors then fouled Derrick Rose to avoid giving up a three. Rose made both free throws to make it a 1 point game. The Bulls then fouled Anthony Parker who split a pair of free throws at the line, making it a 119 to 117 game.

Then Ben Gordon dribbled across the court and then shot a fadeaway jumper over Chris Bosh to tie the game at 119 as the time in regulation expired to bring the game into overtime.

A lot has been made out of that being a bad decision by Gordon, but I think it’s a good one. The Bulls were down by 1, so you want to take a quick shot to give yourselves the opportunity to get an offensive rebound, or foul. Gordon had a pretty good look at the basket too. The Bulls did end up getting two offensive rebound chances, and fouled, which allowed them to get the game into overtime. If Gordon takes that shot at the end of regulation and misses, the Bulls lose, no overtime.

Ben Gordon had ample space on his shot with 19 seconds left.

In overtime, Derrick Rose scored 6 points, all on layups. With 8 seconds left and the Bulls down 129 to 127, Rose turned the ball over as he tried to bounce the ball into Tyrus Thomas. The result was ugly, but it is good that Rose is thinking more on these end of posession plays, rather than just throwing up a layup that probably would have been blocked. He just had to make a better pass, but if he had treaded the pass through, Thomas would have gotten a dunk, and was in a situation in which the player who dunks usually gets fouled. So good idea by Rose, just bad execution. The Raptors would then go onto win it 134 to 129.

Ben Gordon was terrific today, scoring 37 points. He hit big shot after big shot, including the shot that brought the game into overtime. Gordon had 27 of his points in the second half.

Gordon today, is officially the greatest young three point shooter in NBA history. With his 2 three point field goals he passed Nick Van Exel for the most three pointers by a player in the first five years of their career. Gordon currently has 751 career three point field goals and has seven more games to extend that record.

Derrick Rose was great as well today, scoring 23 points on 9-13 shooting and dishing 9 assists. He hit a lot of big shots as well, and just looked good out there.

John Salmons only had 10 points. he wasn’t able to get a large volume going, but he was still efficient,

The Bulls got 16 points from Joakim Noah and 14 from Brad Miller. Tyrus Thomas had 11 points and 4 blocks.

Unfortunately for the Bulls, Chris Bosh also had a monster game. He finished with 31 points and 15 rebounds.

Andrea Bargnani poured in the points as well, scoring 28 in the game.

Jose Calderon had an impressive 22 point and 19 assist game. He tied the Raptor’s record for most assists in a game.

Shawn Marion gave the Raptors 16 points and Pops Mensah-Bonsu, who will join Gordon and Deng on the Great Britain National Team this summer.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 36-39 on the season and fall to eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

Today wasn’t a horrible day for the Bulls. Yes, they lost to a bad Toronto Raptors team (although you wouldn’t think they would be bad with the talent on their roster), but the fashion in which they lost wasn’t horrendous. The Bulls have that never say die attitude again, and that is encouraging. It was also encouraging to see Derrick Rose have another big game as we move towards the playoffs.

I thought the Raptors strategy of using Chris Bosh to guard Ben Gordon was a smart one. Gordon still made some big shots, but that’s because he’s so good at those circus shots because he practices them. But even with Gordon being good at those types of shots, a Gordon fadeaway has better odds of being a miss than a square jumper.

Overall, this is still a disappointing loss for the Bulls, as they had a lead pretty late in overtime and had a chance to steal this one. This truly would be a steal given that the Bulls didn’t have a lead in the game until overtime. It was a road game, so you somewhat expect the Bulls to lose, but the Raptors have been bad all season, although better as of late. Hopefully the Bulls can bounce back in their road game against Indiana on Tuesday.

With 14 seconds left in the game, Bulls up by two, Kirk Hinrich tried to force a pass into Ben Gordon on the inbound play, which was stolen by Chris Bosh, giving Toronto a shot to tie or win the game. Hinrich’s mistake didn’t matter, as Noah blocked Chris Bosh’s turnaround jumper with 5 seconds left in the game. The Raptors promptly fouled Deng, who sank both free throws to give the Bulls the 102 to 98 victory over the Toronto Raptors.

Coming into the game, Vinny Del Negro had to find the answer to the question of what you do when your roster is overloaded with guards and is lacking in the front court. The answer was quite simple for Vinny, end the Larry Hughes getting minutes as a Chicago Bull era and play a three guard lineup with Thabo Sefolosha at power forward and Andres Nocioni at center.

At first, it seemed like the return of Kirk Hinrich into the lineup would end up in disaster, with Del Negro sending Hinrich over to the scorers table to check in for Gordon within the opening minutes of the game. Del Negro came to his senses, and left Gordon in for large portions of the rest of the game, despite Gordon playing horribly. Gordon scored only 10 points on 4-13 shooting. He got a lot of good looks at the basket, but couldn’t connect on 7 of his 9 three point attempts tonight. Outside of his scoring, Gordon played solid defense and was very turnover prone in the first half.

Kirk Hinrich did pretty well in his second game back, finishing with 12 points, 6 assists, and 5 rebounds. Hinrich was a very good glue guy tonight, moving the ball, playing great defense, and directing other players on the court. All of Hinrich’s field goal attempts tonight were three pointers. Hinrich moved well off the ball, getting himself in position for some nice, open three point looks.

But the best guard tonight was the rookie, Derrick Rose, who had one of his finest games of his career, finishing with 25 points and 10 assists. When he drove to the basket, the Raptors met him with zero resistance. A trend is starting to set in with Derrick Rose. Against teams with good shotblockers, he generally struggles, and teams without shotblockers, he dominates. Rose will need to get his jumpshot going again to beat up on the teams with good interior defense.

The best part about Derrick tonight was that he made big shot after big shot in the fourth to get the Bulls the win.

Luol Deng had a really nice game tonight. He finished with 16 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 assists. Luol Deng was really active tonight, making a lot of good cuts, and the guards found him for good looks. A few days ago on Mully and Hanley John Paxson said that Luol Deng is at his best when the ball moves and Luol moves. The style Paxson described was on display tonight, and Luol did excellent in it.

The Bulls on a whole moved the ball very well, passing for 33 assists.

As usual, the Bulls got clobbered by the Raptors front court. Andrea Bargnani had 10 rebounds to go along with his career high 31 points. Chris Bosh added in 25 points, but was plagued with foul trouble throughout the game.

Andres Nocioni, who the Raptors may be targeting, had 16 points.

Anthony Parker put in 15 points for the Raptors. Thabo Sefolosha had 9 points for the Bulls.

Tonight was a nice victory, because the Bulls actually has a semblance of an offense system in place. There were a lot of new wrinkles in the offense that haven’t been seen all season. There was lots of new off the ball movement and some Aaron Gray post ups. This begs the question, what took so long Del Negro? Why did it take 39 games into the season to see this stuff?

The only real disappointment in tonight’s game, besides Gordon’s poor shooting, was not getting to see Lindsey Hunter make an appearance at power forward in the game.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 17-22 on the season.