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.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 97 to 90 at the Bradley Center early tonight.

The Bulls got a great performance out of their perimeter tonight. Derrick Rose, Ben Gordon, Larry Hughes, and Luol Deng combined for 74 of the Bulls’ 90 points. Unfortunately, the Bulls only got 16 points out of their front court.

It should be clear what the team’s problem is. It’s definitely not Ben Gordon and likewise, definitely not Derrick Rose. It’s not Larry Hughes, and not really Luol Deng either, although he hasn’t been spectacular. It’s the horrible big men. Paxson needs to make some kind of trade soon, because the Bulls’ big men have few redeeming qualities.

Ben Gordon was especially spectacular tonight. He didn’t have a great overall game, but he scored 15 straight points for the Bulls in the third quarter to rally the Bulls back into the game by himself. Gordon finished with 22 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists. Gordon has been rebounding the ball very well as of late, similar to what Jason Kidd does, albeit, not as good. This might not be a bad thing, given how bad our big men are at rebounding. Gordon also did a solid job on Michael Redd, limiting him to 13 points on 6-11 shooting.

Scott Skiles did a good job adjusting to Gordon’s hot scoring. Skiles began to meet Gordon with double teams and switched Luc Mbah a Moute onto Gordon, which helped slow him down.

Luol Deng had a good game for the first time in a long while. Hopefully this wasn’t just a one time occasion, in which Deng wanted to have a big game against his former coach. Deng had 21 points on 9-14 shooting, although he did his usual fourth quarter disappearing act. Disappearing act or not, any production out of Deng like this is great. This is the player we expected Luol Deng to be all year. It is pretty simple, Luol Deng has to make his jumpshots to be an effective player.

Derrick Rose was solid tonight. Rose finished with 18 points, 9 assists, and 4 steals. Unfortunately, Rose was sloppy with the ball tonight, turning it over 5 times. A lot of Rose’s assists had nothing to do with anything he was doing, but rather he got them by passing to Gordon off screens who was on fire in the third. Rose did have two very nice alley-oop passes though; one to Deng and one to Thomas.

Larry Hughes had 13 points off the bench, and did a good job from long range, hitting 3 of 4 three point shots.

Luke Ridnour had a solid game for Milwaukee, scoring 12 points and dishing 10 assists. Richard Jefferson added in 21 points.

Charlie Villanueva and Dan Gadzuric tore up the Bulls front court. Villanueva had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Dan Gadzuric had 11 points, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Gadzuric did a good job of altering some of Rose’s layup attempts.

As usual, the Bulls need major front court changes before they can be a consistently good team.

The Chicago Bulls take on the Milwaukee Bucks tonight at the United Center against the Milwaukee Bucks at 7:30 PM.

The Bulls finished off the preseason strong, winning three straight to finish 4-4. The Bucks on the other hand finished the preseason with three straight losses to finish 1-7.

The Bulls and Bucks finished the preseason by playing each other. The Bulls defeated the Bucks 112-104 in overtime, powered by Andres Nocioni’s 26 points. During the game, Andres Nocioni, Luke Ridnour, Kirk Hinrich, and Richard Jefferson were involved in a scuffle after Nocioni lightly fouled Jefferson. Perhaps tempers will fume again tonight.

Luke Ridnour, Michael Redd, Richard Jefferson, Charlie Villanueva, and Andrew Bogut are expected to start for the Bucks.

Derrick Rose, Thabo Sefolosha, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and Drew Gooden are expected to start for the Bulls.

While Sefolosha finished the preseason off with a solid game, he was horrible for the rest of the preseason. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to bring both Hinrich and Gordon off the bench in favor of Sefolosha.

The logic behind this move is that Del Negro wants more size in the back court because the front court is small. The problem is it likely won’t work. With a team like the Bucks with the fire power of Michael Redd, Richard Jefferson, and Charlie Villanueva, the Bulls could easily find themselves down early.

Betus.com has the Bulls rated as 6 point favorites over the Bucks.

The game is at 7:30 PM and will be on WGN and ESPN 1000.

Last Friday, the Bulls defeated the hapless Milwaukee Bucks despite missing three of our key players (Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Tyrus Thomas) and another, Derrick Rose only played 5 minutes.

In the first half there was an altercation where Richard Jefferson began pushing on Andres Nocioni after Nocioni fouled him. Kirk Hinrich then jumped in and pushed Jefferson in the back.

After the game, Daily Herald writer Mike McGraw caught up with Richard Jefferson to inquire about the altercation, and Jefferson actually opened up and talked about the incident.

Richard Jefferson had the audacity to accuse Andres Nocioni of trying to hurt him. Jefferson said, “I’ve never hurt anybody, never been accused of being dirty. Derrick Rose, I went up after the ball, he got fouled. I’m not trying to hurt the young fellow. I’d never disrespect anybody. But Nocioni, can you say the same thing about him?”

What is more amazing is Jefferson’s skewed view of the events that took place.

“I went up after the ball on Rose. I didn’t try to knock him down. I didn’t try to go after the body. I went up and tried to block it, he fell down. If they want to take that like that’s something wrong… I played in almost 80 playoff games in my life. That’s a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball. It ain’t a hack, it ain’t a throw, it ain’t a grab, a wrap-up. I went after the ball. Watch the tape and see if I went after the block.”

Mr. Jefferson, you’re saying that you went after the ball while Nocioni was trying to hack at you and hurt you? Is this why you hit Derrick Rose in the back and grazed his head while never touching the ball? Is this also why Andres Nocioni knocked the ball out of your hands on his foul? Which one of you was actually going after the ball?

And then there is Tom Ziller who writes for AOL Fanhouse. Ziller wrote, “Andres Nocioni hammered Jefferson”. Ziller goes on to write, “You see, that’s how obvious it is that Nocioni is dirty: Jefferson feels it is insulting to even ask him if Nocioni is dirty.”

Is it really that obvious to you Mr. Ziller that Andres Nocioni is a dirty player? Does Nocioni emanate an aura of dirtiness? Perhaps Mr. Ziller could gain more clarity on the situation if he actually watched the game. Ziller admits in his article that he didn’t even watch the Bulls vs. Bucks game on Friday night. Ziller didn’t even bother to go look at a video of the altercation before writing this article. Was it too difficult to watch Sportscenter or go on ESPN.com and watch the game highlights so you could actually know what you were talking about?

Ziller then goes on to say that Nocioni is a player who has built a good portion of his game on hitting players harder than they’d like to be hit while Jefferson is a high-flying skilled player.

Ziller is correct in saying that Nocioni hits players harder than they would like to be hit, but in no way has Nocioni built his game on this. Nocioni only hits players harder than they would like to be hit because the NBA is filled with soft, whiney players like Richard Jefferson who cannot take what Jefferson himself calls “a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball.”

Jefferson said, “It’s like if Bruce Bowen gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? If Ron Artest gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? OK, that pretty much sums it all up, then.”

Should we not be surprised by you, a Milwaukee Buck, pulling a punk move to injure a player? It was the Bucks who gave Awvee Storey, who punched his own teammate Martynas Andriuskevicius in the back of the head leaving Andriuskevicius with a fractured skull. It was a Milwaukee Buck, Royal Ivey, who pathetically punched Aaron Gray in the family jewels in retaliation to Gray knocking Ivey out with a solid screen.

Now I think it is insane to think for a second that Richard Jefferson was trying to hurt Derrick Rose. But Jefferson is making very serious claims that Nocioni goes out on the court trying to hurt people.

Does Jefferson want to take the Bulls vs. Bucks rivalry down the same road as the Bulls vs. Heat rivalry from a few years ago? We can go down that route, but be warned Mr. Jefferson, you and your team lack both the talent and toughness to match up with the Bulls in this rivalry.