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 defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 87-86 in a nail-biter at the United Center.

Jodie Meeks tied the game at 86 with 29.7 seconds left with a three. The Bulls took the one point lead as Jannero Pargo split a pair of free throws. James Johnson missed two free throws with 14.1 seconds left, which would have given the Bulls a solid 3 point lead, fortunately the Bucks missed on all of their shots in an attempt to win the game.

Joakim Noah was the Bull of the day, scoring 20 points and grabbing 16 rebounds. In the first game of the pre-season, Noah was trying some new little moves to score the ball, with little success. Tonight he had great success on the moves he has been working on all summer. His work on the boards was dominating.

Taj Gibson also played well scoring 15 points and 10 rebounds. His midrange jumpshot is impressive, and he is all over the court energy wise. Gibson has now played well in all four of the Bulls’ preseason games. Dejuan Blair might end up as the better player, but Gibson has yet to disappoint.

Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson are providing a path for the Bulls to be a winning team this year. Everyone has talked about how Derrick Rose, John Salmons, Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, etc. will replace what Ben Gordon brought. That’s not going to happen. Where the Bulls can make up for what Gordon brought is in the front court. The Bulls could hold steady or even improve on last year if their big men play better basketball than last year. Last year, the Bulls were one of the worst team’s in the league at both big men positions. If the Bulls could get in the top half of the league in production at both big spots this year, they should be able to have at least a .500 season.

Luol Deng and John Salmons had poor games. Deng finished with 9 points on 3-10 shooting and John Salmons had 6 points on 2-8 shooting. I will excuse John Salmons a little leeway here, as his wife is about to give birth, and that is likely weighing heavily on his mind.

Through four preseason games, Luol Deng is averaging 12 points on 49.96 TS%. He is scoring at a low volume on a poor efficiency. The problem with Deng this preseason, as seen in this game, is that he is having difficulty hitting the jumpshot. If Luol Deng is not hitting his jumpshot, he is not an efficient scorer, and is a hindrance to the offense as a result.

James Johnson had 11 points on 4-5 shooting, but was only 2-6 from the free throw line. Johnson scored 10 of his points in the fourth quarter, and was quiet for the rest of the game. He kind of reminds you of Tyrus Thomas, in that at times he can be a big time difference maker, but at other times, he just coasts through the game.

Kirk Hinrich struggled tonight, scoring 13 points on 5-14 shooting. I think he will look better in a reduced role with Derrick Rose back in the lineup.

Brandon Jennings finished with 10 points and 12 assists. Jennings is an interesting prospect. He isn’t much of a scorer, as his jumpshot is broken, as seen by his 2-13 shooting tonight. However, he can pass. He seems to make the pass just at the right time, giving the guy he passes the ball a good chance to score.

Hakim Warrick led all players in scoring with 25 points for the Bucks. Ersan Ilyasova chipped in 14 points. Michael Redd also had 11 points in 14 minutes.

With the win, the Bulls improved to 3-1 in preseason play.

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 defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 108-95 to start out the 2008-2009 NBA Season 1-0, with a win.

The game was close for most of the way. The Bucks led the Bulls 73-72 with 2:57 remaining in the third. The Bulls than went on a run powered by two Ben Gordon threes, threes from Hinrich and Nocioni, and a running bank shot by Deng to take a 85-75 lead early in the fourth quarter.

The Bulls then cruised to victory powered by great fourth quarter play by Ben Gordon. Gordon scored 10 points in the fourth, for his first double digit fourth quarter of the year.

Gordon came into the game looking rusty, only scoring 3 points in the first half. But Gordon scored 15 points in the second half to finish the game with 18 points and 3 assists.

Derrick Rose was very impressive in his NBA debut. Rose had 11 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals. If Rose continues this type of play throughout the season, he will likely find himself with the rookie of the year award at the end of the season.

Luol Deng broke out of his preaseason slump to score 21 points on 8-13 shooting. Hinrich also had a good game, finishing with 15 points and 7 assists.

The Bulls frontcourt looked nice tonight. Tyrus Thomas had 15 points and 10 rebounds, Drew Gooden had 13 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 steals, and Joakim Noah had 6 points and 6 rebounds. The Bulls defense still struggled a bit on the defensive end of the ball.

Rose and Thomas connected for a beautiful alley-oop, hopefully this becomes a common sight like the Paul to Chandler alley-oop.

Thabo Sefolosha was again horrible, scoring only 2 points in 11 minutes. Hopefully Del Negro ends the Sefolosha as a starter experiment soon. All it is going to do is make Gordon and Hinrich mad as both are far more capable starting shooting guards than Thabo Sefolosha.

The Bucks tonight were led by Michael Redd’s 30 points. Richard Jefferson couldn’t live up to all his pregame attacks on the Bulls, finishing with 15 points on 5-17 shooting.

The Bulls simply outran the Bucks. The Bulls dominated the Bucks in fastbreak scoring 20 to 1.

The Bulls are off to a great start, and actually looked like a strong, cohesive unit tonight.

The Bulls next game is Friday against the Boston Celtics in Boston.

Michael Redd Watch:

Michael Redd scored 30 points on the Bulls tonight. Who defended him best? Here is how many points Michael Redd scored on each Bulls guard tonight.

Thabo Sefolosha - 13
Kirk Hinrich - 9
Ben Gordon - 7
None - 1 (Technical Foul)

Hinrich and Gordon did a pretty good job guarding Redd, while Sefolosha was horrendous.

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.