The Chicago Bulls delivered the fans at the United Center their Big Macs for the second time this season, with a 104-95 win over the Indiana Pacers.

The Bulls took control of the game early, building up a 19 point lead, but Indiana fought back, making it a four point game at the half. But the Bulls pushed back behind the strong play of Derrick Rose, opening up a solid lead, which the Bulls held throughout the second half on their way to victory.

Rose finished the game with 28 points on 11-20 shooting with 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 6 turnovers. The only troublesome part about Rose’s game tonight was the turnovers, but he was excellent in every other aspect of the game. The best part of Rose’s performance was his ability to attack the Pacers defense and draw fouls, allowing him to get 8 free throws in the game.

Rose got some big help from his wings, who all shot over 50% in the game. In the starting lineup, Luol Deng scored 16 points on 6-10 shooting and Kirk Hinrich finished with 10 points on 4-7 shooting, along with 5 assists. Off the bench, John Salmons finished with 17 points on 5-8 shooting. When these three guys score efficiently, like they did against the Pacers, the Bulls are going to put up some points and be tough to beat.

Brad Miller also had a good game off the bench, finishing with 16 points.

For the Pacers, Mike Dunleavy and Solomon Jones had 13 points each in the starting lineup. Earl Watson and Luther Head each had 10 points, and Roy Hibbert poured in 17 points off the bench.

Josh McRoberts had a quick stretch of unstoppability, but he had little effect on the game outside of that stretch, finishing with 9 points on 4-6 shooting.

Tyrus Thomas played well in his second game back from injury, putting up 8 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks, and 5 turnovers. Thomas shot the ball poorly and turned it over too much, but his defensive and rebounding impact on the game were huge. The Bulls should probably continue to play better ball now with a healthy Tyrus here.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 12-17 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder 109 to 98 in an overtime loss at the United Center. The Bulls again failed to win three games in a row, something they haven’t done since the 2006-2007 season when they won 49 games.

This loss is an indictment on John Paxson as a general manager and Vinny Del Negro as a coach.

John Paxson has contructed one of the worst front courts in the league. Tonight, the Bulls did not play a legitimate center, opting to just play power forwards Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah. Although the only true center on the team is Aaron Gray, who isn’t very good. Paxson must begin looking to make a trade for a legitimate center immediately, if not, the team will continue to get murdered on the boards as they did tonight, getting outrebounde by the Thunder 59 to 37.

Vinny Del Negro of course did a very poor job coaching the game. The biggest complaint with Vinny’s coaching would have to be the lack of any offensive system. A team with the Bulls’ offensive talent should easily be able to defeat a team like the Thunder if they had an offensive system in place. If you go out and play glorified pickup ball every night, you open yourself up to losing to team’s such as the 5-32 Thunder.

The next complaint with Vinny’s coaching would have to be playin Joakim Noah over Tyrus Thomas down the stretch of the game. Noah simply doesn’t bring much to an NBA basketball team. He doesn’t have the body to play in the paint. While he did grab 11 rebounds tonight, he allowed Oklahoma City to grab offensive rebound after offensive rebound. Noah is simply too weak to play one of the big man positions in the NBA. He is easily bumped off balance by opposing big men, causing him to miss a rebound or miss an easy shot.

Tyrus Thomas had a solid defensive effort tonight, blocking 4 shots in 25 minutes. Thomas had 6 points to go along with his 4 blocks. If he would have been in the game down the stretch instead of Joakim Noah, the game’s outcome probably would have been different.

The Bulls also had a difficult time winning because Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon both had mediocre games.

Derrick Rose had 16 points on 8-18 shooting and 6 assists. Derrick Rose’s jumpshot looked really bad tonight. When Rose’s jumpshot isn’t falling, he has to attack the basket more.

Ben Gordon had a pretty good regulation, scoring 22 points on 9-15 shooting, but he wilted in overtime, missing all 4 of his field goal attempts. Gordon also had a lot of mental lapses, making quite a few dumb passes again and getting an offensive foul as the result of indecision on a fastbreak.

However, Rose and Gordon did a good job defensively against the Thunder guards. They held Earl Watson to 4 points on 2-10 shooting and Russell Westbrook 14 points on 5-20 shooting.

Unfortunately the Bulls bigs got killed up front as usual. Nick Collison scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Jeff Green had 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Nenad Krstic added 8 points. Joakim Noah and Drew Gooden allowed Oklahoma City to score too many points in the paint. The Thunder scored 54 points in the paint.

Drew Gooden had a solid game offensively and rebounding wise. Gooden finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Gooden was having a good game, but kind of fell apart down the stretch.

Kevin Durant had a good night. Durant finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds. He just has a knack for scoring the ball. The only thing holding back Durant from being a dominant player is his body. He needs to get in the weight room and start putting on some muscle so he isn’t so easily knocked off balance. On one play early in the game, Ben Gordon came in to give some help defense on Durant, caught the ball with his hand, and sent Durant down to the floor. You’d never see this happen to Lebron James. If Durant puts on the muscle, he can just fight through contact and continue on for the score.

Larry Hughes had a decent game. Hughes scored 16 points on 6-13 shooting. While Hughes wasn’t selfish for most of the game, he had two fastbreaks where he should have given the ball up to Derrick Rose. If the Bulls would have scored on one of these Hughes fastbreaks or the botched Gordon fastbreak, the Bulls would have won the game.

Andres Nocioni scored 11 points for the Bulls and Desmond Mason scored 11 for the Thunder.

There is no excuse for the Bulls to lose to the Thunder and Vinny should be reprimanded by management for this loss. Losses to 5-32 teams are unacceptable.

With this loss, the Bulls fall to 16-21 on the season.