The Chicago Bulls blew out the Detroit Pistons 120-87 to hand the Detroit Pistons’ their 13th straight loss. The win was the 2nd straight for the Bulls.

Most Bulls fans who bought tickets for this game probably did so to see the Bulls play against Ben Gordon. Those fans were left disappointed, as Gordon was only able to go for 6 minutes before being pulled for the rest of the game. Gordon suffered a thigh injury in the Pistons loss against the 76ers, and he re-aggravated the injury in the second quarter of tonight’s game. On a fastbreak, Gordon was running side by side with Jannero Pargo, and when Pargo made a burst towards the basket, Gordon was unable to keep up as his thigh tightened up. Gordon was then pulled from the game.

Without Gordon, the Pistons are a pretty pathetic team. Coming into this game, all five of the Pistons’ starters had a true shooting percentage of less than 50%. That changed coming into tonight’s game, as the Pistons were without Tayshuan Prince and Jason Maxiell was sent to the bench. Starting in their place, was Jonas Jerebko and Chris Wilcox, two players with scoring efficiencies greater than 50 TS%.

But the change to the lineup did very little, as the Pistons starting lineup, featuring Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton, Jonas Jerebko, Chris Wilcox, and Ben Wallace is still pathetic. The Pistons fell behind the Bulls in the second quarter, and once the Bulls got up double digits, the Pistons seemed to quit exerting effort on both sides of the ball, allowing the Bulls to continue to pile on the points.

The Bulls took advantage of the Pistons’ lack of defense, converting easily on the good looks the Pistons were providing. Luol Deng led the way for the Bulls with 27 points on 13-18 shooting, and Derrick Rose had a great game as well, scoring 22 points on 11-13 shooting to go along with his 9 assists.

Joakim Noah got another double double, finishing with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists. John Salmons gave the Bulls 17 points on 6-10 shooting off the bench. Salmons has just played great ever since being sent to the bench.

Jannero Pargo got some minutes tonight, first getting in the game during the second quarter. Pargo finished with 9 points on 4-10 shooting and 3 assists, and also turned the ball over 4 times. Pargo did a poor job managing the offense when he was out there, and turned the ball over a lot.

Richard Hamilton finished with 17 points on 6-11 shooting, and really frustrated Kirk Hinrich tonight, drawing foul after foul on him.

Jonas Jerebko finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds, starting in place of Tayshaun Prince. Jerebko is really active, moving off the ball, and going after rebounds.

Rodney Stuckey finished with 11 points, and Chris Wilcox had 10 points.

Charlie Villanueva really struggled tonight, scoring 4 points on 1-10 shooting.

James Johnson accomplished the impressive feat of fouling out in only 8 minutes.

The Bulls did a good job tonight of beating up on a bad team. The best stat of the game was that the Bulls shot 8-19 from the three point line. The more and more the Bulls make their threes, the more potent their offense will become.

With the win tonight, the Bulls improve to 16-20 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Detroit Pistons 98-87 in Detroit, to extend their win streak to three games.

The Bulls took control of the game early behind Derrick Rose. Early in the game, Rose was making his jumpshots, and either finishing on the fastbreak, or drawing a foul on a Detroit player, and then converting at the free throw line. Rose did stall out a bit towards the end of the game, but overall, he played solidly, finishing with 22 points on 7-18 shooting, along with 4 assists and 4 rebounds.

Joakim Noah provided the Bulls a strong presence on the glass, grabbing 21 points. Noah also scored 15 points in the game, to put together another double double. One point of concern was Noah’s 8 turnovers, but when you are scoring and rebounding as Noah did tonight, the turnovers are forgivable.

The Bulls really started to pull away from the Pistons in this game behind John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas.

John Salmons finished with 17 points on 6-10 shooting, to put together one of his better games of the season.

Tyrus Thomas was the main difference maker in the game. Thomas attacked the Pistons defense relentlessly, drawing foul after foul on the Piston’s players. Thomas finished the game with 19 points and 7 rebounds. Thomas should have earned a place back in the starting lineup after this game.

The Bulls are now 3-0 since getting Tyrus Thomas back in the lineup, and seem to be improving as a team. The Pistons on the other hand, are going in the opposite direction, losing their ninth straight game.

The Pistons problem is that they have no clear pecking order of who the offense should run through, and they have too many selfish players who are ineffective on the offensive end, notably Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and Charlie Villanueva.

Hamilton finished with 7 points on 2-13 shooting, Prince 11 points on 5-16 shooting, and Villanueva 10 points on 4-14 shooting.

The best solution to the Pistons’ problems would be to bench Richard Hamilton, and move Ben Gordon into the starting lineup in his place. Gordon is so much better than anyone else on the Pistons, that it is just silly to watch him continually coming off the bench for inferior players, such as Rip Hamilton. The Pistons should then run their offense through Gordon, as he is the one player they can depend on to draw double teams, while also scoring the ball efficiently.

Gordon finished this game scoring 21 points on 59.1 TS%.

Gordon got some help from Rodney Stuckey scoring the ball. Stuckey scored 22 points on 53.3 TS%, while fighting through ankle injuries. Stuckey rolled his ankle twice in the game, but continued to play through the injuries.

Kirk Hinrich struggled scoring the ball once again, shooting 1-6, but he did grab 6 rebounds and 6 assists, and played good defense on Ben Gordon for some short stretches.

Luol Deng was largely invisible, scoring 7 points on 3-10 shooting.

Former Bull Ben Wallace finished with 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 21 minutes, while playing through an ankle injury. The Piston’s defense looked noticeably worse when Wallace was out of the game.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 13-17 on the season.

The 2009-2010 NBA season is quickly approaching. Therefore, here are five bold, specific, quick hit predictions for the 2009-2010 NBA season.

1. The San Antonio Spurs defeat the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the NBA Finals behind a 17 rebound performance by Dejuan Blair. Tim Duncan wins the Finals MVP, while Manu Ginobili hobbles his wa through the Finals, retiring at their conclusion.
2. Brook Lopez makes his first Allstar game appearance and emerges as the top player from the 2008 Draft Class.
3. All four of the conference semi-final matchups (Cleveland vs. Detroit, Boston vs. Orlando, LA Lakers vs. Portland, and San Antonio vs. Dallas) will be epic playoff series.
4. Ben Gordon takes over the starting shooting guard spot from Richard Hamilton in November. At that point, Joe Dumars simultaneously trades Richard Hamilton for a center (it will be either Chris Kaman or Andrew Bogut). The Pistons combine one of the top producing back courts in the NBA with good interior defense to claim the fourth seed in the East. Ben Gordon has a better season than Derrick Rose and makes his first Allstar game. Gordon goes on to knock the Miami Heat out of the playoffs in Game 6 on a buzzer beating leaner along the baseline. The Pistons give the Cavs a hard fought series in the second round before being eliminated in six games.
5. Michael Beasley puts it all together as the Heat win around 46 games. Miami becomes the clear cut top free agent destination. Dwyane Wade re-signs with the Heat on the first day of free agency. The Heat also sign Lebron James or Chris Bosh on the first day of free agency.

According to Tech N9ne of Rumorpress.net, the Bulls may trade for Carlos Boozer.

Look for the Chicago Bulls to make a strong push for Carlos Boozer. Reports have indicated the Bulls are interested in trading for the Utah Jazz power forward and there is a lot of truth to it. General Manager Gar Forman has already had discussions with the Jazz about sending Boozer to Chicago and talks could heat up even more in the coming weeks. The Bulls are looking to send Tyrus Thomas and most likely Jerome James to the Jazz for Boozer, the problem is the Jazz are talking to several other teams and may wait to find a better deal. Either way, the Bulls will at least make a strong effort at trying to get Boozer in Chicago.

I think there is truth to these rumors. This would be a pretty good trade for the Bulls. They would finally get the lowpost scorer that they’ve been lacking since Eddy Curry left in 2005. Tyrus Thomas probably isn’t in the Bulls future plans, as he would have to be renounced if the Bulls decide to pursue a max free agent in 2010.

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Ben Gordon appeared on the Waddle and Silvy show on ESPN 1000 today, to talk about him becoming a Detroit Piston. Here is a recap of what he had to say.

• He is happy about the situation he’s going into.  Joe Dumars is really focused on winning and his priority is winning a championship.  That’s also Ben’s main goal as a player.
• He first knew he was going to sign with the Pistons right after he met with Dumars.  Dumars exuded winning, and everything he talked about was building a team to win a championship.  Dumars convinced Ben pretty easily to sign, and it was a no brainer to sign with the Pistons.
• The Bulls didn’t pursue him at all, they didn’t even make an offer.  It was pretty much a one team race.
• On whether the Bulls were lying when they said it was a top priority to re-sign him, Ben said that it is what it is.  There was no offer made.  You have to put it together.
• He felt that he always got a lot of love and respect from the fans that really followed the games.  When walking down the street, people always showed him love.

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The Chicago Bulls ended up in a tough match against the Detroit Pistons tonight. What made the game so difficult, was that the referees were completely on Detroit’s side, making call after call in Detroit’s favor.

Tyrus Thomas, who was frustrated for not being able to get a foul call, took out his agression on Richard Hamilton, checking him in the backcourt. From this point forward, the Pistons seemed to play a little more shaky.

Brad Miller also lost his cool over not being able to get a call, getting thrown out of the game with two technical fouls.

But even with the one sided officiating, the Bulls managed to stay relatively close to the Pistons. The Bulls trailed the Pistons 85-79 with 5:58 left in the ball game. From here on, Derrick Rose took over the game to get the Bulls back in it. He would score the Bulls next 9 points, tying the game on an up and under move on Rasheed Wallace on the fastbreak, in which he drew an and one, making the free throw.

With the game tied at 88, Rodney Stuckey pulled up for a jumpshot with 34 seconds left. Rose leaped into the air, extending his arm as high as it could go, blocking the shot. Joakim Noah grabbed the ball, got it to Rose, and the Bulls called a timeout.

And this is when that other clutch guy the Bulls have would step in. The Bulls ran a play for Ben Gordon, who found a seam in the defense. Gordon drove past Prince and right into Antonio McDyess, as he laid in the right handed layup to give the Bulls a 90-88.

Gordon’s shot would end up being the game winning basket, as the Pistons missed a few shots, and Rose made a free throw to make it a 3 point victory for the Bulls.

Derrick Rose was absolutely phenomenal, finishing with 24 points and 8 assists. Rose stepped up tonight in the clutch, scoring baskets when his team needed him to and coming up with the clutch block on Rodney Stuckey.

Ben Gordon was solid tonight as well, finishing with 19 points on 8-15 shooting, including the game winning layup. Ben Gordon was hammered by Antonio McDyess on that play. That should have been an obvious foul call, but the foul went uncalled. In the end, the Bulls didn’t need the foul call to beat the lowly Pistons, but that play just exemplified the bad officiating.

Tyrus Thomas finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks. I thought his foul on Richard Hamilton was warranted. The Pistons were playing dirty and taking shots at the Bulls which were being uncalled. It’s nice to see a player actually stand up and not take his opponents crap.

Brad Miller finished with 10 points and only 2 rebounds, and 6 turnovers. A lot of Miller’s turnovers were on travels. That wasn’t part of the bad officiating, as Miller just simply traveled. He travels a lot, with it often going uncalled. I thought Miller did the Bulls a favor by getting thrown out, because he was playing so poorly.

Joakim Noah finished with 11 points and 13 rebounds.

I wasn’t very happy with the front court tonight. They did a poor job securing rebounds. Then again, that might have just been a result of Detroit being allowed to commit looseball fouls after every shot without repercussions.

Richard Hamilton finished with 25 points. He was a tough cover for the Bulls and did a good job scoring.

Rodney Stuckey did a nice job setting up his teammates for 9 assists, but he had a tough time scoring the ball, scoring only 16 points on 6-15 shooting.

Tayshaun Prince finished with 19 points, and again, like Richard Hamilton, he has always been a tough cover for the Bulls.

Rasheed Wallace finished with 11 points and 9 rebounds.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 41-40 on the season. They have clinched at least the seventh seed in the East and took a 1/2 game lead over Philadelphia for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

Tonight was a good win for the Bulls. There was no excuse for them to win this game tonight. Not because they didn’t show up to play (well Brad Miller and Kirk Hinrich didn’t really show up to play, and John Salmons is still struggling with his groin injury), but because the officiating was so much in favor of the Pistons. That’s what makes this such a good win. Good teams find ways to win ugly games, that seem like a surefire loss, and that’s exactly what the Bulls did tonight.

The Bulls now have a half game lead over Philadelphia for the sixth seed. If the Bulls get the sixth seed, they get to play the Orlando Magic, who are an injury plagued team who are stumbling into the playoffs. If the Bulls get the seventh seed, they get to play the Boston Celtics, who have had their own injury problems with Kevin Garnett. The Bulls magic number for the sixth seed is 2.

Good win for the Bulls tonight.

Go Bulls!