The Bulls have been badly bitten by the injury bug as of late. Joakim Noah is probably out for nearly the rest of the season, Derrick Rose has a sprained wrist, and Luol Deng has a strained calf. Luol Deng and Derrick Rose should return soon, but with all of these injuries, the Bulls look like they are going to miss the playoffs this year. While it will stink for the Bulls to miss out on the playoffs after playing so well before the injuries, there is one positive from all of these injuries, and that is James Johnson getting a chance to play extended minutes.

In a game at the beginning of the month, in which he got the start against the Atlanta Hawks, Johnson put up 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 steal in 23 minutes.

Against the Orlando Magic on Thursday, Johnson had 13 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and 1 block.

Then came his game against the Miami Heat, in which Johnson exploded offensively. Johnson finished the game with 20 points on 8-11 shooting, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

In his 3 games as a starter this season, Johnson is averaging 14.0 points on 73.8 TS%, 3.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.7 blocks in 31 minutes.

While the sample size is small, Johnson is beginning to show that he could be quite the player on the NBA level, and there is no reason for him not to be. He is one of the strongest players in the NBA and he pairs that with a great ability at handling the basketball. These two attributes should help him be a good player.

Johnson needs to put together some more good games before he can be considered a legitimate player, but these past 3 games have really opened up people’s eyes to what Johnson can become. While the losses are tough to take, these injuries could end up being for the better if they ultimately are what allowed Johnson to change the trajectory of his career.

The Bulls started off their West Coast road trip with two losses to the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers. The Bulls followed that up with wins over the Phoenix Suns and the Houston Rockets.

The Bulls beat the Phoenix Suns 115-104. The Bulls were led by Derrick Rose, who had one of his best games of the season, scoring 31 points on 15-21 shooting. Luol Deng gave the Bulls 23 points, Joakim Noah 19 points, and 14 a piece for Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons. Amare Stoudemire finished with 23 points and Steve Nash struggled, finishing with only 8 points and 7 assists.

In their 104-97 win over the Houston Rockets, the Bulls got a big night out of Brad Miller, who finished with 25 points and 5 rebounds in only 25 minutes of play. Brad Miller was starting in place of Joakim Noah, who is suffering plantar fascitis. Taj Gibson had a big double double, finishing with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Derrick Rose played well again, finishing with 20 points. Aaron Brooks and Luis Scola had 20 points a piece for the Rockets, and Carl Landry scored 22 points off the bench.

With Taj Gibson continuing to play well while Tyrus Thomas struggles, it is hard to make a good case for Tyrus Thomas starting over Taj Gibson anymore. Thomas will be gone at the end of the season, and the Bulls are unlikely to feel the loss of him at all. If Taj Gibson is the starting power forward next season, then the Bulls might feel the loss of Thomas some, but their cap space should be used to sign a big man, not a shooting guard (unless you are getting that superstar player named Dwyane Wade).

It is also good to see Derrick Rose put up good game after good game. He has really turned the corner as a player.

Also, it is great to see the Bulls get two road wins against tough opponents. This was a part of the schedule that could have really derailed the Bulls season some. Now, it looks like the Bulls will keep a hold of their playoff position coming out of this trip, and will have a chance to move up in the playoff standings when they get back to an easier chunk of the schedule. The Suns are 26-19 on the season, and the Rockets are 24-19, so these are two wins that really shouldn’t have been expected out of the Bulls.

The Bulls have three more games left on this road trip, against the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, and New Orleans Hornets. Worst case scenario is that the Bulls are 5 games under .500 coming out of the road trip, leaving them plenty of time to get back to .500 and make their claim for the playoffs as the schedule gets easier.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 80-74 tonight to capture their first win of the 2009 Las Vegas Summer League.

The game pitted two win-less teams against each other, which made for pretty ugly ball. The game was close for most of the game, with Oklahoma City making it a 3 point game at 70-67 with 3:22 remaining in the game.

From there, Anthony Roberson took over the game scoring 8 points in the final 2:27, leading the Bulls to victory.

Anthony Roberson might have saved his career with the Bulls tonight. He scored 24 points on 9-16 shooting, and 3-8 from three point land. This is a day after a 0 point performance on 0-5 shooting out of him.

The reason it may save his career, is because of the way that he looked scoring these points. It was somewhat of a Ben Gordon-lite performance, with long range bombs, and explosive scoring in clutch time. As already evidenced by the signing of Jannero Pargo, the Bulls are looking for those guys who can heat up quickly and make some shots, and Roberson certainly fit that characterization tonight. Forman might just want to keep Roberson around as another option for Vinny to throw in there off the bench to stry to jumpstart the offense when all seems to be at loss.

James Johnson had an interesting game tonight. He wasn’t dominant, but he was very effective. He finished the game with 8 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists.

He did poorly scoring wise tonight, shooting 2-11. I noticed a few problems in Johnson’s offensive game that need to be fixed. The first problem is that he pump fakes too much. His pump fake is effective for now, it’s a really good pump fake actually, but it won’t continue to work in the NBA if he doesn’t prove that he can shoot. Too often he gets the ball with plenty of space to shoot, hesitates, then pumpfakes, to open up a drive to the basket. He has to mix it up some more between shooting and driving to the basket.

The second problem is that when he does drive to the basket, he brings the ball down, instead of keeping it high, which is the reason why the ball gets knocked out of his hands so often.

Defensively, Johnson looked a little better today. There was one moment where he just got completely lost in no man’s land on a pick and roll, leading to an easy basket for his man. Other then that, the defense looked much better tonight. However, the Thunder have yet to win in Las Vegas, so it just might be a case of their players not being any good, leading to no difficulty in defending their players.

Rebounding wise, he looked poor for most of the game, but he noticeably ramped up the effort on the glass in the fourth quarter, and did quite well with the increased effort.

Johnson’s passing is what really glowed for him tonight. He didn’t have any flashy passes that wowed you, or anything that really stood out really. What his passes were, were smart basketball passes. He made the right pass at the right time, leading to easy scores for his teammates. His court vision is excellent, and he seems to see the open guys, and delivers nice passes helping his teammates score.

James Augustine had another nice game tonight, scoring 9 points on 4-4 shooting, and grabbing 10 rebounds. I think he has proven so far this summer league that he belongs on an NBA bench somewhere next season. He doesn’t try to play a more important role than he can handle, and just stays to his abilities, and it works out well for him. Three games in summer league so far, and all three of them were good for Augustine.

Linton Johnson finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds tonight. It’s nice to see him looking like an actual NBA player out there again.

Demarcus Nelson had 10 points on 3-10 shooting. I can’t see him making any impact in the NBA. He has good size, but his skills just aren’t NBA caliber. The Bulls front office seems to think he has some upside, but I would have no qualms if he was waived following summer league.

For the Thunder, James Harden scored 20 points and had 5 assists. From what I’ve seen of him both in Las Vegas and in Orlando, Harden looks to be a pretty good shooting guard in the NBA going forward. Good pick by the Thunder at three.

DJ White added in 15 points and Robert Vaden added in 14 points.

B.J. Mullens, or Byron as he would like to be known, finished with 7 points on 3-9 shooting and 7 rebounds. He looked okay. He has some nice moves in the post, but can’t quite finish. He had quite a few shots blocked tonight. You can definitely see that there is potential there. It’s not like past Sonics picks, like Mohammad Sene, Johan Petro, or Robert Swift where you don’t see any potential in them of ever being good.

Taj Gibson did not play in today’s game because of plantar fascitis. That’s not a good start to Gibson’s NBA career. He will likely have to take some time off his foot for it to heal. We saw previously how Nocioni was never the same after suffering from plantar fascitis. This could make it a bad career from the start for Gibson, although he probably wasn’t going to have an illustrious career, even without being plagued by plantar fascitis throughout his career.

With this win tonight, the Bulls improve to 1-2 in Las Vegas Summer League competition. The Bulls next game is at 5 tomorrow against the New York Knicks.