The Charlotte Bobcats defeated the Chicago Bulls 113-108 in Charlotte tonight, because of the Bulls’ inability to make shots in the clutch.

The biggest culprit of anti-clutchness was probably Kirk Hinrich, who missed a wide open three that would have put the Bulls up 108-107, and followed that up by missing an open midrange jumper with 25.9 seconds left, which would have tied the game at 107.

The Bulls were forced to foul after the Hinrich miss, and Raymond Felton made two free throws to put the Bobcats up 109-105. But John Salmons came back the other way, converting on an and one to make it a one point game. The Bulls were forced to foul, and the Bobcats converted both free throws, going up three.

The Bulls gave the ball to John Salmons to hoist up the potential game tying shot. Salmons slowly dribbled across the top of the key, deciding to hoist a jumper. In mid jump, Salmons realized he was taking a ridiculously stupid shot, and made a bailout pass to Derrick Rose, who bricked a wide open three. But the Bulls got another chance, as Kirk Hinrich tipped the ball out to Salmons, who also missed a three, guaranteeing the Bulls their second straight loss.

The Bulls problem in this game was their complete inability to shutdown the Bobcats four main perimeter players. Gerald Wallace did the most damage, scoring a season high 32 points on 76.8 TS%. Flip Murray came in and did major damage off the bench, scoring 25 points on 82.9 TS%.

Stephen Jackson had 25 points, experiencing a lot of success posting up Kirk Hinrich. Raymond Felton had 15 points and 6 assists.

For the Bulls, Derrick Rose led the Bulls back into the game down the stretch. Rose finished with an efficient 24 points and 9 assists. Turnovers plagued Rose once again, as he committed 7, but his positives far outweighed that negative tonight.

John Salmons gave the Bulls a big lift off the bench, scoring 19 points on 7-12 shooting. Luol Deng scored 18 points, but he took 17 shots to do it.

Kirk Hinrich shot poorly, scoring 12 points on 4-13 shooting, including his two big clutch misses.

Joakim Noah finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

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

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Charlotte Bobcats 93-90 at the United Center Saturday night in an impressive come from behind victory.

The hero of the game for the Bulls was Joakim Noah, who finished with 21 points, 16 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Joakim Noah was huge on the glass, and altered shot after shot. He scored the ball well too, getting putbacks, scoring off of setups from his teammates, and also off of the hook shot.

Noah is currently showing what the value of a dominant defensive interior big man can do for a team. Noah has been the anchor to the Bulls defense all year, and he has played great defense, which has allowed the Bulls as a team to have a great defense this year.

The other star of the game for the Bulls was John Salmons, who finished with 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. It is good to see Salmons have a game scoring the basketball like this. If Salmons can step it up and score the basketball at the same efficiency as he did last season from here on out, then the Bulls might be able to make some noise in the East, at least in the regular season, if their defense holds strong. Right now the Bulls defense has been so dominant that just a mediocre offensive showing will be enough to get the Bulls a lot of wins.

Luol Deng had a solid game, finishing with 14 points and 11 rebounds. He did a poor job scoring the ball, shooting 6-17, but as usual, he did a good job rebounding the basketball and playing great defense.

Kirk Hinrich was okay, scoring 9 points, dishing 7 assists, while racking up 4 turnovers. The nice thing that we saw Hinrich do this game was hit some big shots. Hinrich scored 6 of his points as part of that rally the Bulls put on in the third quarter in which they began to take control of the game.

Derrick Rose had another bad outing, scoring 14 points while racking up 7 turnovers. He was making terrible decisions when he was passing the basketball.

For the Bobcats, Tyson Chandler finished with 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He was booed throughout the game.

Raymond Felton had a double double with 14 points and 10 assists. Boris Diaw led the Bobcats in scoring with 20 points and Gerald Wallace and Vladmir Radmanovic added 12 points apiece.

With the win, the Bulls improved to 4-2 on the young season.

Early in the ball game, it looked like Derrick Rose was going to be the star of the game, making his first 7 shots of the game.  But it turned out that Rose, who finished with a terrific 22 points and 7 assists, was only the opening act.

Ben Gordon was headlining this event, going for a thunderous 39 points, scorching the Bobcats from behind the three point line making 7 three point shots.

The Bulls defeated the Bobcats, who will be going fishing early this summer.

This one wasn’t an easy one for the Bulls.  The Bulls opened up a 10 point lead in the first quarter, but the Bobcats clawed their way back into the ball game, making it a 2 point game at halftime.

The Bobcats led the Bulls 83 to 78, but the Bulls would come back.  First Ben Gordon made two straight shots, then Kirk Hinrich nailed a midrange jumper.  Ben Gordon would then find Joakim Noah on the fastbreak for a monster dunk.  Ben Gordon would draw the foul on the fastbreak and make both free throws to make it a two point game.  And finally, the Bulls tied it up at 92 on a reverse layup by Brad Miller off of a baseline drive.

John Salmons then went on a scoring burst, with some help from Ben Gordon, to net the Bulls the victory.

The Bulls starting backcourt was impressive tonight, combining for 61 points.  Ben Gordon was just feeling it tonight, and it was nice to see him break out of his shooting slump as the Bulls near the playoffs.  Derrick Rose’s midrange jumpshot was on automatic tonight, and when he’s making that jumpshot, the Bulls are tough to beat.

John Salmons had a terrible first three quarters, but he had a great fourth quarter, scoring 11 points in the final 5 1/2 minutes in the ball game.  I really admire the never stop shooting attitude of guys like Salmons and Gordon.  Salmons had a tough first three quarters, but he didn’t let that shake his confidence, and just kept shooting, and eventually the shots start going in for these guys.

Joakim Noah was also very impressive tonight.  He finished with 11 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 blocks.  Noah just did a little bit of everything tonight and passed the ball very well.  He was key in the Bulls’ victory tonight.

Kirk Hinrich played well off the bench, scoring 10 points on 4-5 shooting.

D.J. Augustin had an alright night, scoring 15 points and dishing for 8 assists.  Raymond Felton helped out too with 26 points and 7 assists, but he turned the ball over 5 times.

Emeka Okafor had 13 points, 14 rebounds, and 2 blocks.  He had nice stats, but it didn’t really seem that he was impacting the game all that much.  Okafor has the talent, he just needs to learn how to impose his will on the game more.

Boris Diaw had a double double with 24 points and 10 rebounds.  Gerald Wallace had 13 points.

Tyrus Thomas finished with 9 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals.  He really didn’t have a good game at all, shooting 3-10.  His head didn’t seem to be in the game very much.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 40-40 on the season.

Closing Comments

It was nice to see the Bulls get the hard fought win over the Charlotte Bobcats tonight. The Bulls are now 40-40 on the season, which puts them back at .500. I am glad that the Bulls are back at .500, and hope they can maintain that, or even finish above .500 on the season. It is nice that the Bulls are no longer a losing team!

The Bulls now have a simple scenario left to secure at least the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference. If they beat the Pistons on Monday, they are the 7th seed, it’s that simple. They need Philadelphia and Miami to keep losing if they have any hope of finishing in the 5th or 6th spots.

The Bobcats are an interesting team to watch. I don’t think they have a whole lot of talent, and are set up for longterm mediocrity, but the one thing that the Bobcats can hang their hats on is that they are a well coached team. Larry Brown has done a good job coaching the team.

Good win for the Bulls tonight, now they just need to go out and beat Detroit on Monday to keep the dream of the fifth seed in play.

Go Bulls!

The Charlotte Bobcats defeated the Chicago Bulls 96 to 80 in Charlotte tonight.  The game was just a complete debacle by the entire Bulls team.  No one on the Bulls really played well.

The highlight of the game for the Bulls was in the final minutes, when Alexis Ajinca elbowed Aaron Gray.  The toothpick sized arms connected to the paper thin body of Ajinca did not move Gray one bit, and following, Gray proceeded to push the twig like object a few feet.

As said, no one played too well for the Bulls tonight, so here is just a quick rundown of everyone.

Ben Gordon had a bad game, finishing with 14 points on 6-15 shooting, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, and 5 turnovers.  Gordon started off the game shooting well, cooled off some, had a nice little run in the third quarter before being taken out, and then couldn’t hit anything in the fourth.  Gordon had some questionable turnovers on offense, in particular a travel as he was swarmed by three defenders on a fastbreak and an offensive foul on a post up.  The fastbreak didn’t look like a travel, and the post up seemed like a bit of a flop by D.J. Augustin.  Gordon has had some trouble measuring up the three point line, leading to him taking some really long two point shots.

Derrick Rose had a poor game, scoring 13 points on 3-11 shooting, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds.  He looked passive most of the game, passing out when he drove, instead of attacking the rim.  He did get to the line a decent amount tonight though, that was a positive.  Rose’s defensive effort was non-existent.

Two Bulls front court players, Tyrus Thomas and Brad Miller, were the only guys who really played any good.  Thomas had 14 points, 12 rebounds, 3 steals, and 3 blocks.  He did most of his offensive damage earlier in the game, and didn’t do too much offensively in the latter parts of the game.  Brad Miller had 13 points an 8 rebounds.  7 of his rebounds were offensive, giving the Bulls more scoring opportunities on a night when the offense wasn’t going.

John Salmons was bad, scoring 9 points, going 4-13 from the field.  He just couldn’t hit a shot.

Joakim Noah had 4 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 blocks.  His shotblocking was pretty good, but he just doesn’t have the strength to bang around with Emeka Okafor downlow.

Kirk Hinrich was mediocre scoring 10 points on 10 shots.

The Bobcat guards were really impressive tonight.  Raymond Felton had 18 points on 6-11 shooting and 9 assists.  Raja Bell had 18 points on 7-11 shooting and D.J. Augustin had 8 points on 3-4 shooting and 5 assists.  They just scored really efficiently tonight.  The amazing thing was that Felton and Bell were hitting some really tough shots that were pretty well defended by Hinrich and Gordon.

Emeka Okafor had a double double with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks.  Okafor is just too strong for guys like Thomas or Noah to stop.

Boris Diaw had 13 points and Gerald Wallace had 10 points.

Just a very bad loss from the Bulls tonight.  They need to start winning these very winnable games if they are serious about making the playoffs.  It seems at this point the Bulls have no confidence on the road, and are nearly certain to lose any road game right now.

Vinny had some weird lineups played tonight.  The weirdest was a four guard lineup that featured John Salmons at power forward.  Vinny also played a lot of three guard lineups.  You just aren’t going to win very often with three guard lineups, it makes you too small of a team.  You never see the really good teams use a gimmick lineup such as that, and the reason for it is because they’re not very effective.

Yes, Luol Deng and Tim Thomas were injured, but that was no reason for Vinny to panic.  Just play John Salmons (who only played 33 minutes) around 42 minutes at small forward, and call it a day.  That seems like it would have been the smart thing to do to me.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 27-34 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Charlotte Bobcats 110 to 101 in Charlotte earlier tonight in overtime, again failing to reach the .500 mark.

The Bulls took a 25-16 lead to end the first, but Charlotte stuck with the Bulls from there on out, and tied it up to bring the game to overtime. In overtime, the Bulls were not very competitive, getting outscored 16 to 7.

The Bulls had multiple chances to put away the Bobcats in regulation. Derrick Rose fouled D.J. Augustin on a three pointer, and Augustin made all three free throws to tie up the game. It loked like Rose probably didn’t actually foul Augustin, but Rose still leaned into him a bit on the jump, allowing for a potential foul to be called.

The Bulls then had the ball for the final posession with 19 seconds left, with the game tied 94 to 94. Del Negro made the mistake of not having the ball in Ben Gordon’s hands the entire play, instead giving it to Derrick Rose. The Bull’s ran their play where Ben Gordon sets a screen for Derrick Rose and then pops out to the three point line. Derrick Rose got extremely selfish on this play, and didn’t wait for the Gordon three, making it hard for Gordon to get open. Rose then drove in and had his shot erased by Emeka Okafor.

Derrick Rose was absolutely terrible tonight and was the reason the Bulls lost the game. This was the worst game by any single Bull all season long. Rose finished with 6 points on 3-16 shooting and 7 assists. Rose played an extremely selfish brand of basketball tonight that was detrimental to the team. Rose’s defense was also very poor tonight. He allowed D.J. Augustin to get anything he wanted. Augustin finished with 29 points and 7 assists.

Ben Gordon was good tonight, scoring 25 points and dishing out 5 assists. Gordon’s shooting was a little off tongiht, but he made up to it by drawing fouls and getting to the line. Gordon’s defense on Felton was so-so. He held Felton to a pretty low scoring efficiency, but Felton is a scrub player who usually scores at a very detrimental efficiency, and that was not the case tonight. Felton finished with 21 points on 7-17 shooting.

Tyrus Thomas put together his second strong game. Thomas finished with 22 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Thomas played smart basketball, dunked the ball, blocked some shots, and made a few of his jumpshots. This is what is so difficult about Thomas, sometimes he will look like he doesn’t even belong in the league, but other nights he will look like an allstar level player. It’s hard for a team to give up on a guy so young who shows flashes like this. Hopefully Thomas can keep this up.

Luol Deng was solid for the Bulls, scoring 15 points on 7-8 shooting. Gooden had 14 points for the Bulls, and Joakim Noah had 7 points and 6 rebounds in 15 minutes of action.

Emeka Okafor had 20 points, 13 rebounds, 3 steals, and 4 blocks as he dominated our big’s tonight.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 11-13 on the season. The Bulls play the Clippers tomorrow night.