The Chicago Bulls lost to the Denver Nuggets by the slimmest of margins last night, losing 90-89 in heart breaking fashion.

With 0.6 seconds left in the game, and the game tied at 89, Chauncey Billups stepped up to the free throw line. He hit the first free throw to give the Nuggets a one point lead, and purposefully missed the second free throw. Joakim Noah snatched up the rebound and and called a timeout, leaving the Bulls with 0.3 seconds left in the game.

The Bulls inbounded the ball to Brad Miller, who was cutting away from the basket. Miller flicked up a shot, and it was good. The Bulls and the United Center erupted into celebration. As the shot was at the end of regulation, the referees were required to review the play. Upon the review, the referees overturned the call, saying that Miller did not get the shot off on time.

It is hard to get too upset over this, as logically, there is no way that Miller got that shot off in less than 0.3 seconds. However, according to the NBA rules, the Bulls should have won last night’s game, as when the evidence is inconclusive, the ruling on the court is supposed to be upheld. There was no way, at least from the camera angles we saw (which are supposed to be the same one’s that the referees see) that they could conclude whether or not the ball was out of Miller’s hands.

I am issuing a challenge to the NBA. Upload this play to the video rule book, and explain the conclusive piece of evidence in your replays that led to this call being overturned. Also, while you’re at it, upload the video Rajon Rondo’s foul in the playoffs, and explain why that is a hard foul that’s not flagrant.

While the loss was disappointing, there were some positives tonight, in particular, Derrick Rose finally had a good all around game. Rose finished with 22 points on 10-17 shooting and 5 assists. The problem of course is that this is his best game of the season. Many expected him to be putting up these types of performances on a nightly basis, and it just hasn’t happened. Hopefully Rose can use this game as a jumping off point for this season.

Joakim Noah continued his defensive dominance, putting up a 12 point, 21 rebound, and 3 block performance.

Luol Deng played well, finishing with 21 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists. In this game, Deng actually scored the ball efficiently. The most impressive part about Deng’s game was the way he played defensively, holding Carmelo Anthony to 20 points, his lowest output of the season, on an inefficient 42.9 TS%.

Taj Gibson was solid, putting up 11 points and grabbing 6 rebounds. He was active on defense, and grabbed 3 steals.

The Bulls backcourt struggles continued, this game being the struggling play of John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich. Salmons finished with 11 points on 3-13 shooting and Hinrich finished with 6 points on 3-10 shooting, 4 assists, and 3 turnovers.

Both Nene Hilario and Kenyon Martin put up double doubles for the Nuggets. Nene had 11 points and 12 rebounds, while Martin finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Chauncey Billups was solid as usual, finishing with 17 points and 6 assists.

Earl Smith struggled for the Nuggets, scoring only 5 points on 1-9 shooting.

George Karl passed up Red Auerbach, to move into 8th place on the all time wins list for coaches, winning his 939th game.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 4-3.

Here is the video of James Johnson’s amazing game winner against the Utah Jazz.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz 102-101 on a James Johnson buzzer beater in London, at the O2.

James Johnson was phenomenal down the stretch. Johnson gave the Bulls a 100-99 lead after scoring on the fastbreak and converting an and one. The Jazz reclaimed the lead on a pair of Ronnie Price free throws. James Johnson tried to be the hero first, but he missed, but the ball went out of bounds on the Jazz.

Then it was Derrick Byars’ turn. He launched a three from the top of the key, which careened off the rim to the left. Johnson grabbed the rebound, flicked it up, and it was good. The entire O2 erupted in celebration.

In total, James Johnson finished with 18 points 8 rebounds and 2 blocks, a much better outing than his first preseason game with the Bulls. Johnson’s energy level was just a lot higher tonight. I think it might have helped Johnson to have Rose out of the lineup. In the first game, Rose really dominated the ball on the fastbreak, while in this game, Johnson was given more reign to show off his skills in transition. When Rose gets back in the lineup, he will have to adjust to Johnson’s great transition skills.

Kirk Hinrich had an impressive day today. He finished with 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. The best part of Hinrich’s game today is how efficiently Hinrich scored the ball. He finished the game with a 102.5 TS%. Hinrich gains the distinct honor of being the first Bull to score over 10 points in a game on over 100 TS%.

The London favorite, Luol Deng, finished with 18 points, 5 assists, and 2 blocks. This was a fitting game for Deng to have in London. In his time with the Great Britain National Team, Deng always finished with point and assist totals similar to what he did today. It’s nice to see Deng moving around the court so well again. It looks as though he is finally completely healed from not only his stress fracture, but the Achilles and back injuries that hindered him in the 07-08 season as well.

Jannero Pargo finished with 16 points on 6-17 shooting and had 5 assists. Pargo chucked up shots in a disgusting display of shot selection, which could make one long for Larry Hughes even. The one big positive of Pargo’s game tonight is that he was 3-6 from three. If Pargo can hit threes at a 40-50% clip this season, he will have a very valuable place on this team, as three point shooting is key in winning NBA games.

Joakim Noah was good today, scoring 10 points, grabbing 3 rebounds, dishing 4 assists, and blocking an astonishing 6 blocks. You would like to see Noah get after it on the boards better, but his shotblocking was great tonight. We know Noah will rebound come regular season time. What’s especially nice about Noah’s first two games this pre-season, is that you know he was serious when saying he worked hard.

Taj Gibson had another solid showing with 10 points and 5 rebounds. Brad Miller had 8 points and 5 rebounds in his pre-season debut, while showing great fire. Derrick Byars had 7 points on 6-7 shooting.

Deron Williams had 16 points and 3 assists for the Jazz. Paul Millsap had 18 points and 6 rebounds. Wesley Matthews also had 16 points for the Jazz.

The Bulls were without Derrick Rose, John Salmons, and Tyrus Thomas.

Carlos Boozer had a quiet 6 point and 5 rebound night.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 2-0 in pre-season action.

Closing Comments

The NBA needs to make the Bulls vs. Jazz in an obscure location an annual event. Last year, in Assembly Hall, Ben Gordon (13 points in the fourth quarter) and Andres Nocioni (8 points in the fourth quarter) hit clutch shot after clutch shot, and clutch free throw after clutch free throw to lead the Bulls to an exciting 108-105 victory. This year, both are departed, but the results were the same. Different player, different place, same result. It was James Johnson’s turn this time around as he downed the Jazz in the O2 in London.

The Bulls just have a knack for downing the Jazz in an exciting fashion, even in the regular season. Last season, Rose and Gordon combined for 50 points in a game against the Jazz, as they led the Bulls from behind to victory. In an earlier regular season game, Larry Hughes hit a game winner off a rebound, similar to what Johnson did yesterday.

And of course there are those game winners Michael Jordan hit in the finals, as well as those other monster performances.

The two Jazz games are on November 26th and March 9th. Mark your calendars, because they’re going to be good ones.

Also, it was cool to see how much support the Bulls got from the London crowd.

Go Bulls!

According to the official Yahoo Sports twitter feed, Jannero Pargo met with the Chicago Bulls’ front office today.

Jannero Pargo met with Bulls today about filling in for some of Ben Gordon’s lost scoring, his rep confirmed. “Great meeting,” agent said.

Jannero Pargo will do very little to fill in for Gordon’s lost scorer. Pargo really isn’t a very good scorer. He has a career scoring average of 6.9 points on a dreadful 47.8 TS%. Pargo sucks most nights that he’s on the court.

But what’s nice about Pargo is that he has that special ability to score in bunches. Jannero Pargo actually put up one of the most impressive scoring runs in NBA history in a Bulls uniform. In Game 5 of the 2005 NBA Playoffs, the Bulls trailed the Wizards 108-98 with 41 seconds left in the game. At that point, Pargo subbed in for Chris Duhon. Pargo went on to score 9 points in a 34 second span, tying the game up at 110 points a piece. This great performance has been largely forgotten by Bulls fans, because on the very next play, Gilbert Arenas hit the game winning buzzer beater over Kirk Hinrich.

I like Pargo as an end of bench guy for this team. But to think that he will replace Gordon in anyway is laughable. Pargo will go on massive scoring runs a few times a season, while Gordon seemed to go on massive scoring runs every other game. Gordon played consistently at a high level, while Pargo consistently has played poorly.

Nonetheless, Pargo would be a good, cheap pickup for the Bulls to play some spot minutes at the point guard position.

On April 20th, 1986, Michael Jordan set the record for most points in a playoff game with 63 points, as the Bulls lost to the Boston Celtics 135-131 in double overtime.

Today, April 20th, 2009, exactly 23 years later, Ben Gordon, who Kenny Smith called Ben Jordan after the game, did his best Michael Jordan impression. Gordon finished with 42 points, shooting 14-24, hitting 6 threes. Unfortunately, like Jordan, Gordon’s big game against the Celtics ended in a loss.

Gordon was able to tie the game at 115, breaking over a triple team for a midrange jumper. Then Ray Allen answered with 2 seconds left in the game with the game winning three. The Bulls were left without a timeout, threw up a heave, and lost, 118-115.

A lot of people are pointing the finger at Vinny Del Negro, but I can’t do that. I thought Del Negro deserves a lot of credit for having his team come out with the proper intensity that was needed to compete in this game.

I think Vinny used his timeouts properly. With the Bulls down by 2, they needed to take a relatively quick shot, so they had time just in case they missed. If they made, they would be giving Boston the last shot. In that case, Vinny could have very easily left a timeout on board, as regulation expired. The problem wasn’t that the Bulls had no timeouts, the problem was that they didn’t get a stop on the Celtic’s final posession of the game, with the shotclock turned off.

Ben Gordon was just terrific tonight. He started getting going in the second quarter, to lead the Bulls to a halftime lead. I thought in the second quarter, he did a good job of playing defense on Rajon Rondo as well.

I hope that Del Negro and company realize that the Celtics can’t stop Ben Gordon. They don’t have any real shotblockers with Garnett out, and Gordon can feast on the drive in this series. I think starting the game with some Gordon drives would be wise, now that Leon Powe is likely done for the series with a sprained knee. If the Bulls can draw some early fouls on Kendrick Perkins, then the Celtics are likely toast.

Derrick Rose was only so so today, finishing with 10 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He wasn’t horrible, and was taken out of the game a bit early on by early foul trouble. But you would like to see him be a lot more aggressive.

Rajon Rondo was phenomenal for the Celtics tonight. He finished with at triple double with 19 points, 16 assists, and 12 rebounds. He also had 5 steals. His speed is deadly, and gave the Bulls all sorts of problems in the first half. Rondo injured his ankle when he came down awkward after being blocked by Derrick Rose in the second quarter. We’ll have to wait and see how that injury affects Rondo. If it swells up and is bad, Celtics are toast. But I don’t think that will be the case. I think Rondo will still be able to play at a really high level.

Ray Allen, after a poor first half, caught fire in the second half, scoring 28 points in the second half, including the game winner. He finished with 30 points in the game. He was simply on fire, not much the Bulls could do.

Glen Davis and Kendrick Perkins killed the Bulls as well. Glen Davis finished with 26 points and 9 rebounds. He scored most of his points on midrange jumpers. Kendrick Perkins finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Paul Pierce finished with 18 points.

It is clear cut why the Bulls lost this game. Their fornt court played weak. It was a weird game from the front court, as they all played somewhat good. Tyrus Thomas finished with 6 blocks, but only 4 rebounds and 6 points. Joakim Noah finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 2 steals. Brad Miller finished with 16 points and 9 rebounds.

Their initial defense was good, but they just didn’t rebound the ball. After blocks, the ball would just be floating or bouncing there, and they wouldn’t grab it. The Celtics seized on this in the first quarter, scoring a ton of easy points off of Bulls blocks. The Bulls gave up 21 offensive rebounds. That’s how you lose basketball games.

Two simple things the Bulls can do that will greatly improve their chances of winning. If you’re going to foul, foul hard, so you don’t give up the and one, which the Bulls gave up all too many times tonight. And secondly, rebound the basketball.

John Salmons also had an inefficient 17 points for the Bulls.

Closing Comments

The Bulls are in a good position going back to Chicago tied 1-1. The Bulls went 28-13 at home this year, and based on the way they played Boston in these first two games, they stand a great chance to win these two home games. I don’t see the Bulls losing two out of their three home games in this series, so at best for Boston, this will go 7 games, which is what I predicted before the series began.

The best sight of the night was Tom Thibodeau’s expressions. He looked clueless as how to stop the Bulls’ offense. The Bulls have just made a mockery of Thibodeau’s defense, and they’ve done it the last 4 times the Bulls played the Celtics.

The Celtics are in a world of hurt. They don’t have a bench at this point in the series with Leon Powe injured. If the Bulls can get Kendrick Perkins in foul trouble, or really any of the Celtics main three perimeter players, the Celtics will be hurting, as their bench lacks anything really useful with all their injuries.

Good effort by the Bulls tonight, they just need to rebound better.

Go Bulls!

The Chicago Bulls ended up in a tough match against the Detroit Pistons tonight. What made the game so difficult, was that the referees were completely on Detroit’s side, making call after call in Detroit’s favor.

Tyrus Thomas, who was frustrated for not being able to get a foul call, took out his agression on Richard Hamilton, checking him in the backcourt. From this point forward, the Pistons seemed to play a little more shaky.

Brad Miller also lost his cool over not being able to get a call, getting thrown out of the game with two technical fouls.

But even with the one sided officiating, the Bulls managed to stay relatively close to the Pistons. The Bulls trailed the Pistons 85-79 with 5:58 left in the ball game. From here on, Derrick Rose took over the game to get the Bulls back in it. He would score the Bulls next 9 points, tying the game on an up and under move on Rasheed Wallace on the fastbreak, in which he drew an and one, making the free throw.

With the game tied at 88, Rodney Stuckey pulled up for a jumpshot with 34 seconds left. Rose leaped into the air, extending his arm as high as it could go, blocking the shot. Joakim Noah grabbed the ball, got it to Rose, and the Bulls called a timeout.

And this is when that other clutch guy the Bulls have would step in. The Bulls ran a play for Ben Gordon, who found a seam in the defense. Gordon drove past Prince and right into Antonio McDyess, as he laid in the right handed layup to give the Bulls a 90-88.

Gordon’s shot would end up being the game winning basket, as the Pistons missed a few shots, and Rose made a free throw to make it a 3 point victory for the Bulls.

Derrick Rose was absolutely phenomenal, finishing with 24 points and 8 assists. Rose stepped up tonight in the clutch, scoring baskets when his team needed him to and coming up with the clutch block on Rodney Stuckey.

Ben Gordon was solid tonight as well, finishing with 19 points on 8-15 shooting, including the game winning layup. Ben Gordon was hammered by Antonio McDyess on that play. That should have been an obvious foul call, but the foul went uncalled. In the end, the Bulls didn’t need the foul call to beat the lowly Pistons, but that play just exemplified the bad officiating.

Tyrus Thomas finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks. I thought his foul on Richard Hamilton was warranted. The Pistons were playing dirty and taking shots at the Bulls which were being uncalled. It’s nice to see a player actually stand up and not take his opponents crap.

Brad Miller finished with 10 points and only 2 rebounds, and 6 turnovers. A lot of Miller’s turnovers were on travels. That wasn’t part of the bad officiating, as Miller just simply traveled. He travels a lot, with it often going uncalled. I thought Miller did the Bulls a favor by getting thrown out, because he was playing so poorly.

Joakim Noah finished with 11 points and 13 rebounds.

I wasn’t very happy with the front court tonight. They did a poor job securing rebounds. Then again, that might have just been a result of Detroit being allowed to commit looseball fouls after every shot without repercussions.

Richard Hamilton finished with 25 points. He was a tough cover for the Bulls and did a good job scoring.

Rodney Stuckey did a nice job setting up his teammates for 9 assists, but he had a tough time scoring the ball, scoring only 16 points on 6-15 shooting.

Tayshaun Prince finished with 19 points, and again, like Richard Hamilton, he has always been a tough cover for the Bulls.

Rasheed Wallace finished with 11 points and 9 rebounds.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 41-40 on the season. They have clinched at least the seventh seed in the East and took a 1/2 game lead over Philadelphia for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

Tonight was a good win for the Bulls. There was no excuse for them to win this game tonight. Not because they didn’t show up to play (well Brad Miller and Kirk Hinrich didn’t really show up to play, and John Salmons is still struggling with his groin injury), but because the officiating was so much in favor of the Pistons. That’s what makes this such a good win. Good teams find ways to win ugly games, that seem like a surefire loss, and that’s exactly what the Bulls did tonight.

The Bulls now have a half game lead over Philadelphia for the sixth seed. If the Bulls get the sixth seed, they get to play the Orlando Magic, who are an injury plagued team who are stumbling into the playoffs. If the Bulls get the seventh seed, they get to play the Boston Celtics, who have had their own injury problems with Kevin Garnett. The Bulls magic number for the sixth seed is 2.

Good win for the Bulls tonight.

Go Bulls!

The Chicago Bulls let a victory slip away tonight in Indiana.  The Bulls had a sizeable lead in the fourth, but Indiana stormed back, and took a 105 to 103 lead on a Danny Granger three.  Ben Gordon then came back down and hit a tough guarded shot to tie the game up at 105 a piece.

The Pacers then ran down the clock and T.J. Ford drove on Derrick Rose and fell back for a tough fade away jumper which he swished through the net.  The Bulls tried to answer with Ben Gordon, who was covered tightly by Danny Granger.  Gordon pushed off Granger with his left arm and lifted for a jumpshot, but came up short of the rim.  Tyrus Thomas could have potentially tipped it in if he wasn’t bumped by Brad Miller.

The Bulls lost for two main reasons.  Firstly, Ben Gordon couldn’t make his shots.  Secondly, the Bulls didn’t play any defense.

Ben Gordon just had one of those nights in which nothing went in.  The announcers mentioned that Gordon had a wrist injury, that could have been why.  He missed quite a few wide open threes, all of which would have been the difference in the game.  He finished with 12 points on 5-18 shooting.  Really bad game from Gordon.

Despite that, the Bulls were still in the game.  The problem was that the Bulls didn’t play any defense.  The Pacers were just getting whatever they wanted against the Bulls non-existent defense.  If Gordon was on his game today, the Bulls offense would have been more than enough to make up for the Bulls lack of defense, but he wasn’t, and their defense really hurt them tonight.

Danny Granger ripped the Bulls for 31 points.  This one isn’t too bad, because Danny Granger is a great scorer, and the Bulls were playing Kirk Hinrich heavily at the small forward position.  But T.J. Ford, who finished with 22 points and 9 assists.  Derrick Rose has to put more effort into defense, and actually make a guy work for his points.  T.J. Ford was able to get wherever he wanted on the court, which allowed him to either score at ease, or set up his teammates for easy baskets.

Josh McRoberts had 10 points in the game, which is unacceptable.  He is horrible.  When you’re giving up that many points to McRoberts, you know your team has defensive problems.

For the Bulls, Derrick Rose was great on the offensive end.  He asserted himself from the beginning tonight.  He finished with 24 points, 6 assists, and 11 rebounds.  Very nice offensive and rebounding effort from Rose tonight.  Hopefully he comes out with this type of aggressiveness more often.

Kirk Hinrich played pretty well too.  He finished with an efficient 20 points, 7 assists, and 7 rebounds.  Overall good game from Kirk.  He could have done a little bit better job on Granger, make him work a little harder for his shots, but you can’t really single Kirk out for this when the entire team played poorly defensively and Hinrich was guarding a bigger player.  But then you look at it again and realize that Kirk Hinrich is the defensive leader of this team.  If you’re leader is mailing it in on the defensive end for the night, the other players will probably follow, especially on a team like the Bulls.  Hinrich also missed 2 clutch free throws that would have helped the Bulls in getting the win.

Tyrus Thomas had 20 points and 2 blocks, but only had 1 rebound.  Thomas needs to rebound the ball.  That goes for the Bulls as a whole.  They let the Pacers get a second chance after they failed to secure a rebound, which set up another posession for the Pacers in which Ford hit the game winner. The Bulls have had quite a few games where they gave the other team a second change to beat or tie them, and this is really costing them.

Brad Miller had a nice little game.  14 points and 8 assists.  He was setting his teammates up well.

Tim Thomas had 11 points on 4-6 shooting off the bench.

Brandon Rush had 11 points and Jarrett Jack had 10 points.

Joakim Noah only played 19 minutes from some unknown reason tonight.

The Bulls were without John Salmons tonight.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 36-40 on the season.

Closing Comments

The Bulls blew this one tonight. Missed free throws, lack of rebounding, and lots of missed shots by one particular player, and a lack of defense from everyone tonight cost us. These are the games we have to win. Yes, it’s a road game, but it’s a team who has been effectively eliminated from the playoffs, so you need to win. The Bulls probably would have won with John Salmons tonight, but that doesn’t matter, because he didn’t play, and other players had to step up. Now the Bulls are only 1 game ahead of the Bobcats, who beat the Lakers tonight, and their playoff spot is in question. The Bobcats have the tiebreaker against the Bulls as a result of winning the season series. This is a little unfair, as it penalizes the Bulls for only playing the Bobcats once at home this season, while the Bobcats got two home games against the Bulls.

What do the Bulls have to do now? Take matters into their own hands and win. Beat a bad New Jersey team at home, beat a bad New York team at home. Beat Philadelphia at home. And they most definitely better beat the Charlotte Bobcats at home. Who knows, maybe when they’re playing the Bobcats they will have the chance to knock them out of the playoff picture. Then go out and beat the Pistons on the road. And then they have the Raptors at home to end the season. Win that game, don’t blow the season then and there.

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Tonight was an example of why I like John Salmons on the Bulls so much. Ben Gordon will have bad nights, although not usually like this. It is tough for the Bulls to win when Gordon has a game like this. But with Salmons out there scoring, the Bulls can usually weather a bad game like this from Gordon as long as Salmons is on his game.

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The main reason for this loss is the defense, and that can only be blamed on the coach. The Bulls defense seems to get worse and worse with every passing game. You’re defense isn’t this bad this late in the season if it’s not for bad coaching.

It looks like I am going to be calling for the firing of Vinny Del Negro after the season. I made the challenge to Del Negro a few weeks ago that if he doesn’t get the Bulls to .500, or win a playoff series with a losing record, then he deserves to be fired. Both don’t appear to be happening this season, therefore, Del Negro will probably deserve to be fired.

Bad loss from the Bulls tonight that mainly stemmed form bad coaching from Del Negro.