Chicago Bulls forward John Salmons talks about his groin injury and the practice time he’s putting in to get back to 100%. Salmons also talks to MOUTHPIECESPORTS personality Jillian Jesk about his limited playoff experience and how he expects the game to change in the postseason. When asked about facing the Celtics without Kevin Garnett, Salmons says he’ll believe it when he sees it.

Vinny Del Negro, John Salmons, Brad Miller, Ben Gordon, Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose talk about their big win Tuesday night over the Boston Celtics. Hear how the Bulls found the luck of the Irish on St. Patty’s Day and find out what’s got Celtics coach Doc Rivers madder than a leprechaun missing his stolen Lucky Charms…

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Boston Celtics 127 to 121 at the United Center tonight giving the Bulls a much needed win as they fight for a playoff spot.

John Salmons was leading the Bulls all night long. He finished with 38 points in the game. Salmons scored 19 points in the first half, and helped the Bulls stay afloat early in the game.

Tyrus Thomas was the other Bull who was big in the first half. Thomas really bothered the Celtics with his athleticism and got a lot of his points on dunks and layups, as well as drawing fouls around the basket on the Celtics players. Thomas finished with 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks. It was good to see Tyrus Thomas bounce back and have a good game finally.

Ben Gordon only had 2 points in the first half, but he came in in the second half and gave the Bulls solid production. Gordon finished the game with 17 points and 4 assists. His starting backcourt counterpart also had a rough first half as well as early third quarter. But when Rose came back in the game, he had a stretch, in which he scored the ball at will. The Celtics, because of foul trouble and injury were forced to play a small lineup, and Rose took advantage of it, and made his layups for a change. Rose also managed to set up his teammates very well in the fourth. Rose finished with 11 points an 8 assists.

Brad Miller, was the other guy, in addition to Salmons that was most important in getting us this victory. During one stretch in the mid fourth quarter, Miller scored 8 straight points for the Bulls. Miller hit some big shots for the Bulls tonight and also grabbed some big rebounds. Miller finished with 21 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 assists, easily his best game as a Bull.

I think tonight, was a night where Vinny Del Negro actually outcoached the other team. Boston’s hand was kind of forced tonight in the fourth, a little, as Leon Powe got injured when he banged his knee against Ben Gordon, Kevin Garnett was already out with an injury, and Mikki Moore fouled out. So the Celtics were going to have to play small at least at the power forward position.

But Doc Rivers decided to play small altogether, and put Paul Pierce at the center position. At first, it looked like Del Negro was going to go somewhat small, with Tyrus Thomas at center, guarding Paul Pierce. This didn’t quite work, and Del Negro quickly subbed in Brad Miller at center, much to my delectation. On defense, the Bulls played a zone to avoid the awkwardness of Miller chasing around a smaller, much quicker player.

Anyone who has played basketball knows that there is no substitute for height. Unless a big man is soft, which Brad Miller is not, the taller player will generally rebound better than a smaller player who is matched up on him. It doesn’t matter whether the smaller player is more athletic, and tries really hard. When you’re boxing out, and putting a body on another player, very few have the strength to get a good jump going when fighting for position, so the height advantage is huge. This also comes into play on the offensive end, as the bigger player can just shoot over the smaller player.

I think that Doc Rivers should have put Kendrick Perkins in the game down the stretch. You can play small ball, but you need at least one legit big man in the game if you want to be competitive.

Also, John Salmons has to be praised. This guy is such a smart basketball player. There are two things that John Salmons has been doing that I really like. The first, is that he will measure up three pointers. When Salmons gets the ball on the wing, and the defender is playing loose, he will just look at the basket measuring up a three point shot. Yes, there is a defender within the vicinity, but when you’re able to measure this shot up, like Salmons does so often, it becomes a high percentage three point shot.

The other thing I really like is how Salmons uses Ben Gordon as a decoy. A lot of the Bulls sets have Ben Gordon set up in the corner. What Salmons does is he drives baseline, and then when Gordon is in the other corner he will make eye contact with Gordon. This gets the defensive players thinking that he is going to pass the ball to Gordon, so they meet him with soft help defense, or back off to block a pass to Gordon, which gives Salmons some really good looks around the basket on his drive.

Paul Pierce was really good tonight. he finished with 37 points. He played his heart out tonight, and tried to keep the Celtics in the game. Ditto for Rajon Rondo, who finished with 26 points and 10 assists.

Ray Allen had a bit of a rough game tonight, scoring 17 points on 5-12 shooting. Vinny used a really effective strategy on Allen tonight. Ray Allen is such a good player at moving without the ball, and using screens to get open. Instead of letting Allen get a wide open shot, like he is apt to do, Vinny would switch a big man onto Allen as he was coming around the screen, and then switch the defender, often Ben Gordon, onto a Celtics big man. This strategy was pretty effective, so well done Vinny.

Kendrick Perkins finished with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Eddie House had 13 points on 4-7 shooting from three point range.

Kirk Hinrich finished with 9 points, 6 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Not a spectacular game, but a good gritty game out of Hinrich, with some solid defense. He just played his role, and he played it well.

Ben Gordon hit 2 three point shots tonight. He now is sitting at 742 career three pointers, and is just 9 three pointers away from breaking Nick Van Exel’s record for most three pointers made in the first five season of a player’s career.

Doc Rivers was ejected in the closing minutes of the game, in what seemed to be a premeditated ejection.

With the victory, the Bulls improve to 31-37 on the season, and now sit alone in the eighth seed.

Closing Comments

This was a great win for the Bulls. Even without Kevin Garnett, the Celtics are still a really good team, possessing two stars and a really good young point guard. The Bulls have now beaten the Boston Celtics, New Orleans Hornets, Orlando Magic, Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, and Phoenix Suns at the United Center. The Bulls are a really good home team. 9 of the Bulls final 14 games are at home, and against not so great competition, with the exception of the Lakers, and with an easy road schedule (OKC, WAS, TOR, IND, DET), so presumably, the Bulls will make the playoffs.

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It was nice to see Vinny Del Negro actually out coach someone this season. Vinny gets a lot of criticism this season, but he has done some nice things. Most notably, how he handled the backcourt situation. He gave Ben Gordon the starting shooting guard spot, and has rewarded him, by letting him keep it all season long, even through his rough patches. He has relegated Kirk Hinrich to a bench role, the role that is best for Hinrich on this current Bulls team. And all reports say that even if Deng didn’t get injured, Salmons would be replacing him in the starting lineup, which would have been the right decision.

I think Del Negro deserves a lot of the criticism he has received. He was a horrible coach up until Reinsdorf called out the coaching staff. He has been a relatively horrible X’s and O’s coach, especially on the defensive end, although he did have some interesting X’s and O’s tonight. But one thing that has to be recognized, is that Vinny has the team playing hard and competing right now. He seems to have the right rotation being used. The Bulls are playing like world beaters at home. He deserves some credit for this. If Del Negro can orchestrate a successful playoff run, getting the Bulls back to .500 and competing hard in the playoffs, then maybe, just maybe he should keep his job. Then again, you look at the list of potential coaches avaiable including Avery Johnson, Flip Saunders, Jeff Van Gundy, and Tom Thibodeau, and then you think again…even if Vinny does accomplish getting the team back to .500, maybe he should be fired anyhow because of the great coaching talent available.

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The Bulls looked good in their green uniforms. There is just something about Tyrus Thomas wearing a green uniform against the Boston Celtics that makes him play really well. He did the same thing 2 years ago against the Celtics with the Bulls wearing their green jerseys. Benny the Bull also looked pretty snazzy in green.

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Luol Deng has got to be done in Chicago. John Salmons is just a much better player and also a better fit for this team. This isn’t quite like the Tyson Chandler situation. With Tyson Chandler, we had the likes of Othella Harrington and Malik Allen in the front court, with our additions being Ben Wallace and a rookie Tyrus Thomas. There were still plenty of minutes to be had for Chandler. With Deng, John Salmons is clearly a better player, who deserves to play around 36 minutes a game. You don’t want to pay your backup small forward $80 million, so I fully expect the Bulls to aggressively shop Deng this summer.