The Chicago Bulls blew out the Detroit Pistons 120-87 to hand the Detroit Pistons’ their 13th straight loss. The win was the 2nd straight for the Bulls.

Most Bulls fans who bought tickets for this game probably did so to see the Bulls play against Ben Gordon. Those fans were left disappointed, as Gordon was only able to go for 6 minutes before being pulled for the rest of the game. Gordon suffered a thigh injury in the Pistons loss against the 76ers, and he re-aggravated the injury in the second quarter of tonight’s game. On a fastbreak, Gordon was running side by side with Jannero Pargo, and when Pargo made a burst towards the basket, Gordon was unable to keep up as his thigh tightened up. Gordon was then pulled from the game.

Without Gordon, the Pistons are a pretty pathetic team. Coming into this game, all five of the Pistons’ starters had a true shooting percentage of less than 50%. That changed coming into tonight’s game, as the Pistons were without Tayshuan Prince and Jason Maxiell was sent to the bench. Starting in their place, was Jonas Jerebko and Chris Wilcox, two players with scoring efficiencies greater than 50 TS%.

But the change to the lineup did very little, as the Pistons starting lineup, featuring Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton, Jonas Jerebko, Chris Wilcox, and Ben Wallace is still pathetic. The Pistons fell behind the Bulls in the second quarter, and once the Bulls got up double digits, the Pistons seemed to quit exerting effort on both sides of the ball, allowing the Bulls to continue to pile on the points.

The Bulls took advantage of the Pistons’ lack of defense, converting easily on the good looks the Pistons were providing. Luol Deng led the way for the Bulls with 27 points on 13-18 shooting, and Derrick Rose had a great game as well, scoring 22 points on 11-13 shooting to go along with his 9 assists.

Joakim Noah got another double double, finishing with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists. John Salmons gave the Bulls 17 points on 6-10 shooting off the bench. Salmons has just played great ever since being sent to the bench.

Jannero Pargo got some minutes tonight, first getting in the game during the second quarter. Pargo finished with 9 points on 4-10 shooting and 3 assists, and also turned the ball over 4 times. Pargo did a poor job managing the offense when he was out there, and turned the ball over a lot.

Richard Hamilton finished with 17 points on 6-11 shooting, and really frustrated Kirk Hinrich tonight, drawing foul after foul on him.

Jonas Jerebko finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds, starting in place of Tayshaun Prince. Jerebko is really active, moving off the ball, and going after rebounds.

Rodney Stuckey finished with 11 points, and Chris Wilcox had 10 points.

Charlie Villanueva really struggled tonight, scoring 4 points on 1-10 shooting.

James Johnson accomplished the impressive feat of fouling out in only 8 minutes.

The Bulls did a good job tonight of beating up on a bad team. The best stat of the game was that the Bulls shot 8-19 from the three point line. The more and more the Bulls make their threes, the more potent their offense will become.

With the win tonight, the Bulls improve to 16-20 on the season.

With the Bulls down three, Luol Deng bricked a three point shot from the top of the key, giving the Bulls their third loss in a row, as they fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 96-93.

The Bulls, who were down 17 points at one point in the first half, made it a two point game when Brad Miller stroked a three pointer to make it a 93-91 game. The Bulls would then come up with the stop, but Derrick Rose was called for a charge, giving Milwaukee the ball back. The Bulls forced Charlie Bell to miss, but no one put a body on Hakim Warrick, and he slammed it home to give the Bucks a 95-91 lead.

The Bulls quickly called a timeout and advanced the ball past half court. The Bulls found Rose on a curl, and the Bucks gave Rose an easy layup, making it a 95-93 game. It seems like a pretty dumb decision for the Bucks to just give Rose the layup like this. If they had played tough defense on Rose, they could have easily forced him to pass it or forced him into a bad shot. If the Bulls had missed there without a quick putback, the game would have been pretty much over, and by allowing Rose to make this shot so fast, they gave the Bulls a chance to tie, as Michael Redd split a pair of free throws to make it a 96-93 game with 8 seconds left.

On the final play, John Salmons got the ball. He opened up a clear shooting path after getting his man on the pump fake, but opted to pass the ball to Luol Deng, who bricked the potential game tying three.

This was pretty much a mirror image of what happened last game against the Charlotte Bobcats. John Salmons had the ball in pretty much the same spot, and decided to pass the ball to Derrick Rose when he was in the air. Rose of course bricked the shot and the Bulls lost the game. In both instances, Salmons opted to pass the ball to guys who are known not to take three point shots.

It is these situations where the Bulls are down three and need to tie the game where they really, really miss Ben Gordon. Derrick Rose who is the one guy who has an ability like Gordon to create his own shot, and Rose can’t make three point shots. Luol Deng, who moves well off the ball to get open for shots, also is not known to make three point shots. Kirk Hinrich has difficulty creating his own shot, and is terrible when contested on a shot, and he is also terrible in the clutch, even when he is wide open.

So that leaves the Bulls to go to John Salmons in these type of situations, and Salmons lacks that killers edge that Ben Gordon possessed. Ben would just go up for the shot confidently, he knew it was going in. Salmons appears unconfident in these situations, hesitating on his shots, and passing the ball out to teammates after pump faking or while in the middle of his shot. The Bulls are better off with Salmons just jacking up a shot in these situations than passing it out to teammates.

In the future, when the Bulls are down three, Vinny should probably go with a lineup of Jannero Pargo, Kirk Hinrich, John Salmons, Luol Deng, and Brad Miller, with Brad Miller popping out to the three point line as the first option, and Jannero Pargo as the second option, as at least these two guys will just go up and shoot the ball confidently.

One of the main proponents in the Bucks win was Andrew Bogut, who played great in the first half, as well as in the stretch run of the game. Andrew Bogut finished with an impressive 27 points, 13 rebounds, and 6 blocks. Bogut did most of his damage against Joakim Noah, who was just too weak to guard Bogut, as Noah ceded ground too easily whenever Bogut backed him down in the post.

Michael Redd was also big for the Bucks, finishing with 24 points on 8-16 shooting and 8 rebounds. Redd really came alive in the second half, hitting big shots to keep the Bucks in the game.

Derrick Rose led the Bulls in scoring with 25 points, but he did it inefficiently, taking 25 shots to score those 25 points. The Bucks did a good job of keeping Rose away from the basket. When Rose did get near the basket, the Bucks were set for charges (a trademark of a Scott Skiles’ defense) and Bogut blocked many of Rose’s shots. Rose also had 9 assists and 5 rebounds in the game.

Outside of his defense on Andrew Bogut, Joakim Noah was solid, finishing with 10 points and 18 rebounds.

Luol Deng finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds and Kirk Hinrich finished with 12 points and 6 assists.

Off the bench, Brad Miller scored 11 points and John Salmons had 10 points.

For the Bucks, Ersan Ilyasova had 13 points and 11 rebounds, Hakim Warrick had 11 points and 7 rebounds, and Luke Ridnour had 10 points.

Brandon Jennings struggled tonight scoring only 5 points on 1-9 shooting. Jennings also had 8 assists and 3 blocks, including a nice block on a driving Derrick Rose.

There was a little scuffle in the second half which started with Kirk Hinrich and Luke Ridnour being called for a double foul. Ridnour then tried to get away with a push on Hinrich, but was called for the offensive foul. Ridnour then picked up his third foul in 11 seconds on a Hinrich drive. After the foul, Hinrich pushed Hakim Warrick, which prompted Andrew Bogut to come over and get entangled with Kirk Hinrich. The fight didn’t escalate past that point.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 14-10 on the season.

Derrick Rose has been named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week according to NBA.com.

The Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose and the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant today were named the Eastern and Western Conference Players of the Week, respectively, for games played Dec. 28, through Jan. 3.

Rose led the Bulls in scoring in each game, averaging 26.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.7 assists, as Chicago went 3-0. On Jan. 2, Rose became the first Bulls player to post a 30-point, five-rebound, five-assist game since 2008 (Kirk Hinrich) when he amassed 30 points, six rebounds and seven assists in a 101-93 win over Orlando.

Here is a recap of each of Rose’s performances this past week:

Dec. 29 vs. Indiana: Posted 28 points, five rebounds, six assists and one block in a 104-95 win over the Pacers.

Dec. 31 @ Detroit: Scored 22 points to go along with four rebounds, four assists and two blocks in a 98-87 win over the Pistons.

Jan. 2 vs. Orlando: Tallied 30 points, six rebounds and seven assists in a 101-93 win over the Magic.

As I recollect, Ben Gordon is the only other post-dynasty era Bull to receive this award. Because of this, Rose is joining some rare company, even if that’s because of the franchise’s horribleness, rather than this being any type of crowning achievement.

But still, Rose should be proud of earning this honor. His play in the last week was his best string of games in his career, and he is really turning the corner into a star type of player that can lead his team to victory. Hopefully he keeps it up.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Detroit Pistons 98-87 in Detroit, to extend their win streak to three games.

The Bulls took control of the game early behind Derrick Rose. Early in the game, Rose was making his jumpshots, and either finishing on the fastbreak, or drawing a foul on a Detroit player, and then converting at the free throw line. Rose did stall out a bit towards the end of the game, but overall, he played solidly, finishing with 22 points on 7-18 shooting, along with 4 assists and 4 rebounds.

Joakim Noah provided the Bulls a strong presence on the glass, grabbing 21 points. Noah also scored 15 points in the game, to put together another double double. One point of concern was Noah’s 8 turnovers, but when you are scoring and rebounding as Noah did tonight, the turnovers are forgivable.

The Bulls really started to pull away from the Pistons in this game behind John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas.

John Salmons finished with 17 points on 6-10 shooting, to put together one of his better games of the season.

Tyrus Thomas was the main difference maker in the game. Thomas attacked the Pistons defense relentlessly, drawing foul after foul on the Piston’s players. Thomas finished the game with 19 points and 7 rebounds. Thomas should have earned a place back in the starting lineup after this game.

The Bulls are now 3-0 since getting Tyrus Thomas back in the lineup, and seem to be improving as a team. The Pistons on the other hand, are going in the opposite direction, losing their ninth straight game.

The Pistons problem is that they have no clear pecking order of who the offense should run through, and they have too many selfish players who are ineffective on the offensive end, notably Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and Charlie Villanueva.

Hamilton finished with 7 points on 2-13 shooting, Prince 11 points on 5-16 shooting, and Villanueva 10 points on 4-14 shooting.

The best solution to the Pistons’ problems would be to bench Richard Hamilton, and move Ben Gordon into the starting lineup in his place. Gordon is so much better than anyone else on the Pistons, that it is just silly to watch him continually coming off the bench for inferior players, such as Rip Hamilton. The Pistons should then run their offense through Gordon, as he is the one player they can depend on to draw double teams, while also scoring the ball efficiently.

Gordon finished this game scoring 21 points on 59.1 TS%.

Gordon got some help from Rodney Stuckey scoring the ball. Stuckey scored 22 points on 53.3 TS%, while fighting through ankle injuries. Stuckey rolled his ankle twice in the game, but continued to play through the injuries.

Kirk Hinrich struggled scoring the ball once again, shooting 1-6, but he did grab 6 rebounds and 6 assists, and played good defense on Ben Gordon for some short stretches.

Luol Deng was largely invisible, scoring 7 points on 3-10 shooting.

Former Bull Ben Wallace finished with 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 21 minutes, while playing through an ankle injury. The Piston’s defense looked noticeably worse when Wallace was out of the game.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 13-17 on the season.

In the offseason, the Chicago Bulls made a new commitment to defense. They were going to be a team that beats other teams with their defense, not their offense. However, after a dominant defensive start, the Bulls are quickly becoming one of the league’s worst defensive teams.

The Bulls are currently ranked 20th in the league in defensive rating, posting a defensive rating of 107.6. Their defensive rating is better this year, than last year, when they posted a defensive rating of 108.7. However, relative to the rest of the league, they are worse this year than last year. Last year they were ranked 18th in defensive rating.

Their actual defense is probably worse than last year’s as well. It should be taken into account that the league is worse as a whole offensively than it was last year. Teams are scoring 1.6 fewer points per 100 possessions this year than they were last year. If you adjust the Bulls defensive rating to the better offensive production of last season, than it is clear that the Bulls are probably around the same or worse defensively this year than last year.

The league wide drop in offensive production is likely a result of more team’s penny pinching. With the economy the way it is, team’s are going to be less likely to spend money to get good bench players for their teams. This problem is seen with the Bulls, who let Ben Gordon walk in free agency, did not sign Derrick Byars after training camp, and passed on signing Allen Iverson, all in efforts to avoid spending more money, and keep profits up.

But how are the Bulls worse defensively? Shouldn’t having a proper sized shooting guard in John Salmons improve the Bulls defense drastically over last year’s team, which featured the shorter Ben Gordon at shooting guard? The truth is that perimeter defense is overrated in the NBA.

Ben Gordon did everything that is needed of an NBA guard. He did a good job staying between his man and the basket, and contested shots. The difference between him, and Kirk Hinrich, who is a great defender, in what the opposing shooting guard scores and on what efficiency is going to be minimal, as ever since the rule changes before the 04-05 season, which allowed for no contact on the perimeter, good offensive guard when going up against good defensive guards usually put up their normal numbers.

Where a good defensive team is made is in the front court. Brad Miller and Joakim Noah both have negative Player Efficiency Rating differentials at the center position, where they play the majority of their minutes. Taj Gibson, who plays 42% of the team’s power forward minutes is especially bad, posting a PER differential of -9.7.

The one bright spot is Joakim Noah at the power forward position, where he plays 28.6% of his minutes. Noah has a +7.1 PER differential when playing the power forward spot.

Joakim Noah’s problem at the center position is that he is too small. He has a shorter standing reach than most centers, and because of his weight, he can have some difficulty holding position in the low post.

The Bulls should look into moving Joakim Noah to the power forward position and starting Brad Miller in order to improve their defense. If the Bulls continue to play the way they are playing, they may play themselves into a high draft pick, which could land them a real center, such as Kansas’ Cole Aldrich, who would provide a long term solution for the Bulls at the center spot.

However, the Bulls’ defensive problems are miniscule in comparison to their offensive problems. The Bulls are currently ranked 27th in the league in offensive rating, with an offensive rating of 99.5. Now there is nothing wrong with a team being a defensive focused team, but there is a problem with a team being as bad on offense as the Bulls have been.

In order for the Bulls to have an even point differential, they would need to have a defensive rating of 99.5 also. If the Bulls were to have that defensive rating, they would be the 2nd best defensive team in the league. So in order to have just an average team with an offense this bad, a team needs to be one of the league’s best defensive teams.

If the Bulls wanted to be a good team, say as good as the Atlanta Hawks of last season, they would need to have a point differential of 1.7. In order to have this point differential with this offense, the Bulls would need a defensive rating of 97.8. If the Bulls were to post that defensive rating, they would be the best defensive team since the rule changes in 04-05.

So in order to be as good as last year’s 47-35, second round and out Atlanta Hawks, the Bulls would need to be one of the best defensive teams of all time, if they were to continue playing at their current offensive level.

If the Bulls want to get better as a team, they will need to get better offensively. It is impossible to be a good team with an offense this bad

How can the Bulls improve their offense? The most obvious way is to start shooting more three point shots. The Bulls are currently last in the league in three point field goal attempts and makes. One of the simple truths of basketball is that making a three point shot is better than making a two point shot, because 3 > 2.

This is one of the main facets of an offense like Mike D’Antoni. D’Antoni encourages players to shoot wide open three point shots, even if they don’t shoot the best percentage. If a player shoots 33.3% from three point land, that is equal to shooting 50% on two point field goals. If a player only to take threes when they take jumpshots, and shot 33.3%, taking 7 three point shots a game, while making 70% of their baskets close to the basket, and taking 3 of those shots per a game, they would score at an efficient 56 TS%.

Making three pointers is key in boosting up offensive efficiency. So the best way to improve the Bulls offense will be to start hoisting up more three point shots. Rose, Deng, and Salmons need to stop passing up the wide open three point shot, as taking that shot is the right basketball play to make.

John Salmons and Luol Deng in particular need to start taking more three point shots. Salmons is a career 35.9% (53.9 TS%) three point shooter. Luol Deng has made 41.8% (62.7 TS%) of his threes over the past three seasons. These guys have shown to be good enough three point shooters to have free reign to jack up the open three point shot.

The Bulls need to implement these changes fast, because if they fail to improve their offense, they are going to be a bad team all year long.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Detroit Pistons 92-85 at the United Center, snapping their five game losing streak.

The story of the game of course was Ben Gordon’s return to the United Center. When he first checked into the game he was greeted with a mixture of cheering and boos.

It was good to see a sizable portion of the United Center crowd cheering for the guy. Unfortunately, I don’t think this crowd is necessarily representative of what would happen with a normal United Center crowd. I suspect that a lot of Ben Gordon’s bigger fans among the Bulls’ fan base purchased tickets for this game. A normal United Center crowd probably would have been full of more of the non-informed fans who booed Gordon, who don’t really understand basketball and the contribution that Ben Gordon brought to the Bulls’ basketball wise, as well as his great conduct off the court.

It’s impossible to support fans who decided to boo Ben Gordon. Gordon was the Bulls’ best player for almost his entire time in a Bulls uniform, and did nothing but work hard his entire time in a Bulls uniform. His Bull career ended with him scoring 33 points on 55.7 TS%, as he tried to gut out a victory for the Bulls while playing on a torn hamstring.

Ben Gordon ended up having a mediocre return to the United Center, which is not really surprising, given that he was coming off an ankle injury. Gordon still finished with 18 points on 6-16 shooting. To put Gordon’s performance in perspective, he scored on a greater volume and scoring efficiency in this game than John Salmons, Kirk Hinrich, and Jannero Pargo, the three players who are replacing his minutes on the court.

Defensively, Gordon stuck his man pretty well. Derrick Rose and John Salmons had some pretty good nights, but very few of their points came against Gordon.

Defensively, the Bulls were a mixed bag defensively on Gordon. John Salmons and Lindsey Hunter were a complete failure in guarding Gordon. Gordon missed a lot of shots that he would normally make against those two. Neither could keep him from getting clear looks at the basket, and Salmons especially had trouble stopping Gordon from getting to the basket.

Where the Bulls excelled defensively on Ben Gordon was in their help defense. That is because of Luol Deng and Joakim Noah. These two guys were frustrating Ben Gordon all night. I think this shows that Luol Deng and Joakim Noah are some high basketball IQ players. They seemed to know Gordon’s game as good as one can. Whenever he burned John Salmons, Noah or Deng were right there helping, making the correct reactions to frustrate Gordon’s shots.

I think Ben Gordon definitely has the potential to be a Bull killer in the future. He can get any shot he wants at will against John Salmons or Lindsey Hunter. Things might be a little different when Kirk Hinrich is guarding him, but with Hinrich’s physical play, it’s easy to see Hinrich getting into foul trouble. Ben Gordon also has a history of completely burning smaller guards, so that also works in Gordon’s favor in the potential Ben Gordon vs. Kirk Hinrich matchup.

As for the rest of the game, this was a win the Bulls needed, as they were coming off a five game losing streak from their road trip, and they were also playing a bad Detroit Piston’s team. The Pistons were without Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Charlie Villanueva, and Ben Gordon was coming off of an injury. The Bulls better beat a team who features Chucky Atkins, Jonas Jerebko, and Jason Maxiell in their starting lineup.

The Pistons starting lineup finished with only 33 points on 11-37 shooting. No team is going to win when their starting lineup performs that poorly.

This is not to say that the Pistons will be a bad team all season. If they get all of their guys back, they can probably make the playoffs. As bad as they have been, they’re only 1.5 games behind Charlotte for the final playoff spot, and are only 4 games behind Miami for a playoff seed that features home court advantage.

The Bulls seemed to be in control of the game nearly the entire time. The Pistons made some runs to close the gap some throughout the games, but the Bulls would repeatedly build their lead back up.

Derrick Rose had a good game, scoring 19 points on 6-9 shooting along with 6 assists. He did have five turnovers in the game, but his highly efficient scoring mitigated the effect of those turnovers.

John Salmons did great offensively, scoring 22 points on 7-12 shooting, but he had trouble defensively, stopping Ben Gordon from getting good shots.

Luol Deng struggled a bit, scoring 14 points on 5-15 shooting, but his defense was superb.

Joakim Noah had another great night, finishing with 7 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks.

Brad Miller finally had a good game, finishing with 16 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists.

For the Pistons, Rodney Stuckey finished with 17 points, but did it on 4-16 shooting. Stuceky struggled to score efficiently tonight as he is very much a one dimensional scorer, who gets his points by driving to the basket. The Bulls set up with good help defense when he drove, and that forced him to score inefficiently.

Willy Bynum and Kwame Brown finsiehd with 10 points each.

The former Bull, Ben Wallace, finished with 0 points and 7 rebounds.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 7-9 in the season, and are slotted as the 7th seed in the East.

The Pistons guard and former Bull talks with MOUTHPIECESPORTS personality Mitch Robinson about what he’s expecting tonight against the Bulls. Find out in this exclusive interview what he thinks about tonight’s game, the series rivalry and matching up against his former team.