The Chicago Bulls fell to the Toronto Raptors 99-89 last night.

The reason for the Bulls loss was their lack of offensive production. The Bulls carried a 78-77 lead into the fourth quarter, but only scored 11 points in the fourth quarter en route to their second straight loss.

The Bulls took an 88-85 lead with 6:24 left in the fourth quarter on a Taj Gibson free throw. This would be the last time the Bulls would score until Kirk Hinrich hit a free throw with 10 seconds left on the game.

This is unacceptable, and the obvious elephant in the room has to be brought up, and that is, that the Bulls offense is so bad because they no longer have Ben Gordon.

Going 6:14 without scoring is unacceptable at the NBA level. To put it bluntly, if you had Ben Gordon go down the court and throw up contested jumpshots over double teams for six minutes, he is going to score, probably multiple times. It’s just amazing that an NBA team could go that long without scoring.

Joakim Noah had another solid game, getting another double double, with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

Noah did a good job guarding Chris Bosh. Yes, Chris Bosh had 28 points on 55.1 TS%, which is a very good game. But on the season, Bosh is averaging 28.9 points on 62.7 TS%, so Noah kept him below his season averages in both.

Taj Gibson had a good game, finishing with 18 points on 8-13 shooting, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals.

The Bulls held Andrea Bargnani to only 16 points on 5-15 shooting, which is great.

Derrick Rose had another mediocre night, finishing with 14 points on 6-14 shooting and 6 assists. Rose did a horrible job defensively, giving Calderon easy drives to the basket, as Calderon went on to score 18 points on 8-10 shooting and dish 6 assists.

Luol Deng struggled again offensively scoring 18 points on 8-19 shooting. Deng’s offense isn’t as bad as the other members of the Bulls, but he is still playing bad offensively, scoring the basketball at an inefficient rate.

John Salmons had another terrible game, scoring 5 points on 1-11 shooting. I think it’s time for Salmons to meet the bench.

Kirk Hinrich struggled as well, finishing with 11 points on 3-10 shooting, 4 assists, and 5 turnovers.

Hedo Turkoglu finished with 11 points on 4-12 shooting.

This is a game that it looked like the Bulls would win, up until they had a complete offensive breakdown.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 4-4 on the season.

At the end of the 2006-2007 NBA Season, the Bulls final game of the season was against the New Jersey Nets. Their mission was simple, win, and they get the second seed in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls ended up losing that game 106-97, and became the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.

This year, a similar scenario was in play. If the Bulls were to beat the Toronto Raptors tonight, they would get the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference. Similar to that game against the Nets, the Bulls choked this one away, losing 109 to 98.

It still looked like the Bulls might get into that sixth seed, as Cleveland took Philadelphia into overtime. But the 76ers prevailed in overtime, giving the Bulls the seventh seed, and what some might consider a death sentence against the Boston Celtics.

The encouraging thing from this game was the play of Derrick Rose, who finished with 20 points and 11 assists. Rose has been great all month and hopefully he will continue this great player in to the playoffs.

Ben Gordon has a bit of a rough night, scoring 23 points, but on 9-22 shooting. Not a good game from Gordon, but getting 23 points in one of your bad games isn’t the worst thing in the world. The Bulls will need Gordon to score both in volume and with efficiency if they hope to take out the Celtics.

The Bulls got “good” production out of their big men. Joakim Noah had 17 points and 9 rebounds, Brad Miller 14 points and 11 rebounds, and Tyrus Thomas had 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. The reason I put good in quotes is because their stats are good, but I don’t think their impact was quite as good as their stats. This group collectively is way too soft on the boards. If they let the Celtics kill them on the boards like they let the Raptors do to them tonight, they will not last very long in the playoffs.

The Bulls got virtually no production from John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich. John Salmons had 5 points on 1-7 shooting. He is clearly still hurting from his groin injury.

Kirk Hinrich scored 0 points on 0-6 shooting. This is ridiculous, you cannot come this unprepared to play in a big game. Hinrich continues to live up to his reputation as a player who shrinks in the big moments.

Shawn Marion had 34 points and 11 rebounds for the Raptors. He just couldn’t miss, shooting 15-18 from the field.

Chris Bosh added in 21 points and 19 rebounds. The Bulls needed to do a better job of keeping him off the boards.

Jose Calderon had a nice 14 points 14 assist game as well.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 41-41 on the season, and are doomed to the seventh seed, which means they will play the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

Closing Comments

I am very angry over this loss. The Bulls need to step up, seize the moment, and get the win in these big games. They let game 5 of the 2006 playoffs slip away, when Wade was clearly banged up. They let the second seed slip away in 2007 when they lost to the New Jersey Nets. And now they let the sixth seed, and a favorable matchup against the Orlando Magic slip away by losing to the Raptors tonight. There is no excuse for losing to a team that plays Patrick O’Bryant for 27 minutes.

The Celtics are not a good matchup at all. Since the current team was assembled, the Bulls have only been able to be eek out a 6 point victory in a game in which Kevin Garnett did not participate. Every other game the Celtics destroyed us. If Garnett is in any type of playing shape, the Celtics will likely make quick business of the Bulls.

Still, the Bulls have been one of the best teams in the East since making the trade for John Salmons and Brad Miller. If John Salmon’s groin can heal up before the Bulls first game, the Bulls might be able to make this series interesting, especially if Kevin Garnett is hampered by his knee injury.

Go Bulls!

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.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Toronto Raptors 114 to 94, dropping their fourth straight game.

With 3:33 left in the fourth and the Bulls down by 8, Vinny Del Negro decided to sub out Ben Gordon. From there on, the Bulls only scored 2 more points, letting Toronto run up the deficit to 20 points.

How many completely idiotic coaching decisions does Del Negro get before he gets canned? It is usually never a good idea to take Gordon out of the game in the fourth quarter. He has a history of being a great fourth quarter player. But to compound on that, Gordon was having a good fourth quarter, scoring 9 points while missing only 1 shot. Anyone who knows anything about any sport in general knows that you should continue riding the hot player when the game is on the line.

On the whole, Ben Gordon just had a decent night. Gordon scored 19 points on 5-14 shooting, but was 8-9 from the free throw line. Gordon also had 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Gordon was doing all the right things tonight. He was attacking the basket hard, and was starting to put together a nice game through his great fourth quarter play. It is hard to see what Vinny was thinking when he benched Gordon. Maybe he thinks he can save his job by keeping Gordon’s season averages down and saving the organization a little money. News flash for Vinny, Jim Boylan already tried that one, and he got fired.

Derrick Rose had a very poor outing, scoring 12 points on 5-12 shooting, grabbing 3 rebounds, dishing 4 assists, and getting 4 turnovers. This is another reason why Del Negro has got to go, Rose has developed into a really bad player under Del Negro. Derrick Rose does not contribute to winning basketball at this point in his career, and for that reason alone, Del Negro should be fired.

Kirk Hinrich had another nice game off the bench. Hinrich had 17 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds. He is really thriving offensively in the sixth man role. Hinrich’s defense hasn’t been that good the past few games, but the team as a whole has bad defensively, so it’s hard to knock Hinrich when it might just be the defensive schemes.

Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas were terrible for the most part. Their defense was just bad. Thomas though, had a really nice dunk over Jermaine O’neal. Aaron Gray was the Bulls best big off the bench, scoring 7 points and grabbing 7 rebounds.

Luol Deng was good, scoring 14 points on 4-8 shooting. Andres Nocioni had 15 points off the bench.

Jose Calderon really killed the Bulls. He had a very efficient 23 points, shooting the ball 9-10 from the field, while dishing for 10 assists. The Raptors looked like a much better team with him out there directing the office then they did a little over a week ago with Solomon Jones running the point.

The Raptors front court really killed the Bulls. Andrea Bargnani had 22 points and Chris Bosh had 17 points.

Joey Graham scored 16 points in the game.

The Bulls were rather careless with the ball, turning the ball over 23 times.

It is getting really hard to write game recaps, because the Bulls are so awful. This is not an indictment of the players though, it is an indictment of the coaching staff. The team simply is playing pickup ball. There is no noticeable offensive or defensive systems. The talent on the team is fine, there is just not a good offensive or defensive system in place for the players to excel in. The Bulls need to fire Vinny Del Negro and get a veteran coach who knows what he’s doing.

The Bulls are a horrible team, and a lot of it has to do with the horrible coaching. It is time for Reinsdorf to improve the product he’s putting on the court, or else the fans may begin to leave.

With this loss, the Bulls fall to 18-26 on the season.