According to Bulls.com, Derrick Rose will defend his Skills Challenge title that he won last year at Allstar Weekend.

Derrick Rose confirmed on Wednesday that he will take the court to defend his Taco Bell Skills Challenge title in Dallas next month during NBA All-Star weekend.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Rose from the Berto Center. “Last year, it was a great experience being there with my family. Just having the opportunity to be around the All-Stars; I can’t lie, it was fun. I appreciated that opportunity because it was so unbelievable.”

Last February, the Bulls guard became the first rookie to win the Skills Challenge when he defeated New Jersey’s Devin Harris in the championship round. Tony Parker and Mo Williams were the other participants. Past winners of the Skills Challenge include Deron Williams, Dwyane Wade (back-to-back) and Steve Nash.

Hopefully Rose puts forth more effort in this year’s contest than he did in last year’s. Winning is still impressive, but it seemed like Rose was just going through the motions last year, rather than aggressively going out there trying to win. Hopefully he brings his new aggressive passion that he has shown recently during games to the Skills Challenge, and just blows everyone out of the water, because he has the speed to do just that.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 86-85 in Cleveland last night.

The game looked like it was going to set up for a Cavs win. Luol Deng missed a shot, which the refs ruled to be an airball, which led to a 24 second violation and the Cavs getting the ball back with a few seconds remaining. The replay showed that the shot probably hit the rim. We were going to see the same story we’ve seen many times before, Lebron drives to the basket, refs call a foul, and the Cavs win.

So on the very next play, Lebron James drives left to the basket, being bodied up by Luol Deng. Joakim Noah then came over to help, and Lebron lost the ball out of bounds.

This was defense executed to perfection. You had Deng not giving into Lebron, staying between himself and the basket, leading Lebron into the defensive wall, preventing Lebron from getting to the rim in Joakim Noah.

It is defense like this for why the Bulls beat the Cavs, and defense like this for why the Bulls are 3-2. The defensive improvement has come entirely from the front court. Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and Brad Miller have been making smart rotations on defense, and have played the pick and roll well.

Derrick Rose had an alright game tonight, scoring 14 points and dishing 11 assists. His passing was impressive, and he set up many of his teammates for easy looks. However, he is still scoring the ball very poorly, as he took 15 shots to get his 14 points tonight.

Luol Deng finished the game with 15 points and 7 rebounds. He had a rough night scoring the ball, taking 16 shots to score his 15 points, but he did a good job on the boards, and did a solid job of defending Lebron James, which is no easy task.

John Salmons scored 14 points in the game on 6-13 shooting. Again, efficient scoring was a problem with him, as he didn’t make a lot of three pointers, and didn’t get to the line much. Additionally, John Salmons last point came with 5:58 remaining in the third quarter.

Taj Gibson gave the points 11 points and 7 rebounds, and Joakim Noah put up 7 points and 11 rebounds.

Kirk Hinrich had a solid 9 points, 6 rebound, 4 assists game and Brad Miller added in 10 points.

For the Cavs, Lebron James continued his excellent play, finishing with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. Anderson Varejao put in 12 points and 13 rebounds, and Shaquille O’neal had 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks. Mo Williams and Anthony Parker had 11 points a piece.

The Cavs offense just hasn’t been the same ever since they lost their offensive guru, John Keuster, to the Detroit Pistons this offseason.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 3-2 on the season.

Devin Harris started off the competition sloppy, missing on both chest pass locations. Harris missed one jumpshot too, finishing with a time of 36.9 seconds.

Mo Williams came up and dogged it, going through the pylons really slow. He had trouble with the bounce pass zone and even had a little interference from the ball boy. He finished with a time of 37.5 seconds.

Rose didn’t seem to give it a full effort in the first round. But he did good in all of the passing zones, hitting all the passes on the first try. He missed one jumpshot. But he cruised to a 33.3 second time to cheers from Benny the Bull to qualify for the finals.

Tony Parker came out and did horrible, bouncing his first set of passes over and over again. He then bricked jumpshot after jumpshot and finished with a pathetic time of 50.8 seconds.

The championship round set up as Derrick Rose versus Devin Harris.

Devin Harris opened up the finals round. He struggled with the bounce pass and missed three jumpshots to finish with a time of 39.7 seconds, leaving it open for just a solid round by Derrick Rose needed to bring home the victory.

Derrick just cruised through the round. He had little mishaps, missing a jumpshot and the pass after the jumpshot. But Rose exploded to the finish with a thunderous dunk. Rose finished with a time of 35.3 seconds

After the competition, Rose told Cheryl Miler that the bounce pass was the toughest part of the competition.

Prior to the contest, none of the TNT analysts picked Rose to win the contest. That includes Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith, both who did not pick Rose as their winner earlier on Inside the NBA.

With that, Derrick Rose is the winner of the 2009 Playstation’s Skills Challenge.

For all of those who received the Bulls Mobile Alert saying that the Bulls defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in 102 to 93 in overtime, but didn’t watch the game, that message was not a joke! The Bulls rallied together to get the win against the NBA’s best team.

With the game tied at 87, Lebron James bricked a midrange jumpshot over Luol Deng to send the game into overtime.

In overtime, it was all Bulls. Rose started things off with an and one layup. Then Kirk Hinrich put in a three to give the Bulls a six point lead. Next it was Luol Deng’s turn, as he made a corner three to give the Bulls an eight point lead. Then Deng careened another corner three high off the rim and in to give the Bulls an 11 point lead. Hinrich and Thomas finished off the overtime with free throws.

The game started off looking bad for the Bulls, as Delonte West scored at ease over Ben Gordon to start off the game, putting in 6 early points, followed by 5 more on Kirk Hinrich. Unfortunately for the Cavs, late in the first, Delonte West fell and hit his head against the floor opening a laceration over his eyebrow. West also fractured his wrist on the fall.

The Cavaliers put their defensive focus around Ben Gordon, keeping him from getting any good looks at the basket. Gordon smartly deferred to his teammates, instead of forcing up a bunch of bad shots. Gordon finished with 5 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists.

Derrick Rose had a bad game as a whole, but was excellent in the late fourth quarter and overtime, making multiple clutch shots and free throws. It looked like Rose was going to let the Bulls down when he missed two free throws with the Bulls down 87 to 85. But Rose made two free throws to tie the game at 87 and bring the game into overtime. Rose scored the Bulls last 7 points of regulation. Rose finished the game with 16 points on 6-20 shooting and 6 assists. Rose came up during the clutch, and that’s all that matters.

Kirk Hinrich once again played excellent basketball. Hinrich hit a key three point shot in overtime and forced and won a jump-ball with Mo Williams. Hinrich finished the game with 12 points, 5 assists, and 2 steals. His impact is larger than what the box score shows. He brings a dimension to the Bulls that Derrick Rose has shockingly failed to bring. That is kick and drive basketball. The Bulls’ ball movement is greatly improved thanks to Hinrich’s kick and drive play. Hinrich also continued his stellar defense tonight. Hinrich also seems to be a leader on the court, making sure that the other players on the court do what they’re supposed to be doing.

It will be difficult for the Bulls to trade Hinrich given the amount of energy and leadership he has brought to the team. Trading Kirk Hinrich for an expiring contract no longer seems like the wisest trade, and instead, trading Hinrich should only be done if it gives us a big man that seriously improves our team.

Tyrus Thomas added in a real nice game, finsihing with 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Thomas’ help defense was key in shutting down Lebron tonight.

Luol Deng had a good game as well, scoring 22 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. He has scored well since Hinrich came back from injury, and played good defense on Lebron tonight.

Lebron James really struggled tonight. He scored 28 points, but it was on an inefficient 8-28 shooting. The Bulls forced James to turnover the ball eight times, including once on James’ infamous crab dribble.

Mo Williams lit Derrick Rose up for 26 points. This is to be expected, Derrick’s defense is still very poor.

Both Drew Gooden and Andres Nocioni scored 11 points for the Bulls.

This was just an all around good team win. The Bulls played good team basketball, moved the ball around well, and played good defense. Hopefully the Bulls can use this game as a launchpad for a good second half of the season.

This was the Bulls second win in a row. With this upset over the Cavaliers, the Bulls improve to 18-22 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls started 2009 just where they left off in 2008, getting blown out. The Bulls got humiliated in Cleveland tonight 117 to 92.

For the second straight game, Vinny Del Negro quit. This is the third time this season where Vinny clearly quit on a game, the man is simply a quitter. The Bulls were down 15 with almost an entire quarter left in the game, yet Vinny never brought Rose and Gordon back in the fourth, allowing Cleveland to rebuild their lead.

There is not much to analyze about the Bulls humiliating losses these days. The Bulls are simply playing glorified Boylan-ball. It is only glorified, because Vinny is playing Ben Gordon more than Boylan did and because the Bulls now have Derrick Rose. The Bulls have no noticeable offensive sets and the team doesn’t even pretend to try on the defensive end of the court. Someone should really teach Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah about the concept of help defense, because both seem to think that you aren’t allowed to help out when an opposing guard dribbles to the basket.

It is clear what the Bulls have to do, replace Vinny Del Negro. We gave him a try. Perhaps his ideas really were great, but that doesn’t chance the fact that he had no coaching experience, and obviously could not implement anything. And on the small chance that the players are actually running his offensive and defensive sets, then Vinny is a terrible basketball mind. Regardless, the result has been horrific, and Vinny has earned his dismissal.

Derrick Rose finished tonights game with only 3 points and 2 assists. Rose simply didn’t care when he was in the game. He accepted defeat. This is unacceptable. Our head coach has made this team so bad, that our never give up point guard is accepting defeat. The coach needs to go.

Ben Gordon is the lone bright spot for the Bulls tonight, finishing with 22 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal. He is simply a great scorer, and can score in the face of adversity. Gordon showed a certain look of disgust on his face often tonight. That is the look of other players not passing him the ball when he is sitting there wide open waving his arms yelling for the ball. On one of these plays Thomas dribbled the ball down the court ignoring Gordon on three separate occasions. Sefolosha and Noah also went in against heavy defensive coverage either to be stripped or put up a bad shot. Apparently no one taught our players that you can pass out of the paint to the perimeter in a drive and kick or post up. The coach needs to go.

Our big men again did not produce offensively or defensively. They were easily scored on by the Cleveland bigs and did not offer any resistance to the penetration by Cleveland’s guards. Anderson Varejao had 26 points, Ben Wallace 13, and J.J. Hickson had 13 points. A bunch of Cleveland players had their season highs tonight. The Bulls big men have no idea how to defend either big men or penetrating perimeter players. The coach needs to go.

Lebron James had a triple double for Cleveland, finishing with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists. He easily picked apart the Bulls.

Lindsey Hunter added in 13 points for the Bulls and Andres Nocioni had 11 points.

Delonte West gave the Cavs 14 points, Sasha Pavlovic added in 13, and Mo Williams had 11.

Cedric Simmons had 9 points and 4 rebounds. He has done something our other bigs haven’t been able to do, and that is catch and dunk the ball.

Zydranus Ilgauskus did not play tonight.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 14-19 on the season.