The Bulls came up big in the first game of the season yesterday, defeating the San Antonio Spurs 92-85 at the United Center.

The Bulls won in a total team effort, depending on a strong team defense and an even distribution of scoring.

Tim Duncan destroyed the Bulls, going for 28 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocks. That was okay, as the Bulls shutdown every other key player on the Spurs. Richard Jefferson only had 9 points on 3-9 shooting, Tony Parker had 8 points on 4-11 shooting, Manu Ginobili had 12 points on 3-11 shooting, and Antonio McDyess had 1 point on 0-4 shooting.

The Bulls effort was led by Luol Deng, who scored 17 points on 8-13 shooting. This is an encouraging start to the season, and if Deng can keep it up, the Bulls could push into the mid to high 40 in wins. However, I don’t think Deng can keep it up. In last night’s game, only 2 of Deng’s makes were near the basket. He was making his long jumper last night, and that is why he was so successful offensively last night. He did the same thing during the 2006-2007 season. This is why it’s a little hard to get too excited about Luol’s game tonight, he didn’t display any new ways he can score. If his midrange shot isn’t elite, like it hasn’t been for every year except 06-07, then Deng is going to score inefficiently, and be a hindrance on the offense.

On the flipside, John Salmons struggled, scoring 10 points on 3-15 shooting. He will have a lot better shooting nights than he did tonight, just a bad game for him.

The Bulls got terrific play at the point guard spot from Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich. Derrick Rose finished with 13 points, 7 assists, and 7 rebounds and Kirk Hinrich scored 14 points. Kirk Hinrich is easily the best backup point guard in the game, and the Bulls should be one of the top teams in the league in point guard production for the year.

The major reason that the Bulls were able to knock off the Spurs was because of the play of their front court. The Bulls got good production from their main three big men. Tyrus Thomas was impressive with 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Joakim Noah had 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks, and Brad Miller had 9 points.

With the win, the Bulls start the season 1-0. They play the Boston Celtics later tonight in the early ESPN game.

Closing Comments and Season Outlook

The Bulls looked great in their season opener. Is this a sign that the Bulls are going to be a great team this year, and maybe take the fourth seed in the East? It could be, but I don’t think so.

The reason I don’t think so is because I don’t foresee Luol Deng playing like this every night, and even with good defense, other teams will score better than the Spurs did. Good offense beats good defense. I think what the Bulls will get out of Luol Deng is great defense, but very poor offensive production, and because of Deng’s lack of a three point shot, I think he might muddle up the offense a bit.

I think the big question of the season is how do the Bulls big men perform. That is, how do they perform on the defensive end of the court. If the Bulls big men step up, and play good interior defense, than the Bulls can be a good team, and challenge for the fourth seed in the East. If the Bulls big men play like they did last year, then this will be a forgettable year for Bulls fans.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the Bulls big men playing at an elite level on the defensive end all year. I think they will be better than last year, but the loss of Gordon will far outweigh the gains the Bulls make on the defensive end.

Where does this leave the Bulls? They won’t be a bad team, but they won’t be a very good team either. From what I have seen around the web, there is a general consensus that the Bulls will finish somewhere in this 35 to 45 win range. Las Vegas set 41.5 as the over/under for the Bulls record this season.

My personal prediction before last night was 38-44, but I’m going to ammend that to 39-43, because I didn’t think the Bulls would beat the Spurs last night. 39-43 is my prediction for the Bulls record this season, just missing out on the playoffs with the 9th seed. Hopefully I’m wrong.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 117 to 102 at the United Center tonight to move into the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.

Ben Gordon was the real star tonight, finishing with 34 points, 7 assists, and 4 steals. Just a great overall game. Gordon really got going in the second quarter, hitting three after three en route to 21 first half points. Gordon went 4-6 from three point range, and is just 23 three pointers away from breaking Nick Van Exel’s record for most threes by a player in their first five years in the NBA.

Derrick Rose was great as well, finishing with 27 points and 6 assists. Almost all of Rose’s points came right at the basket on layups. Granted Milwaukee doesn’t have any shotblocking resistance inside, but Rose was finishing around the hoop better than he has all season long.

Kirk Hinrich had an interesting stat game tonight. He finished with 11 points on a super efficient 123.9 TS%. Well done.

John Salmons also did very well, scoring 21 points. He’s a much better starting small forward than Luol Deng.

Brad Miller went around in the first half like a drunken sailor, missing shots and fumbling the ball. He picked up his play in the second half though, and finished with 12 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists.

Tyrus Thomas was really bad tonight. He was taking a lot of bad shots, and not playing that good of defense. His counterpart, Joakim Noah, had another good rebounding game, finishing with 13 rebounds.

Thomas actually broke the Bulls franchise record for most consecutive games with a block. The new record is 24 consecutive games.

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute had 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Bucks. A lot of his points came inside, and were because of some poor inside help defense by our bigs.

Richard Jefferson scored 27 points, but he did it inefficiently, taking 23 shots.

Ramon Sessions had 20 points and 11 assists and Charlie Villanueva added in 19 points.

This was just a nice all around win for the Bulls. When you’re playing a team you are in direct competition for in a playoff race, you have to beat them, and the Bulls did that tonight. This was really a must win game, as the Bulls will embark on a tough set a games, where they will have to play rlando, New Orleans, Boston, and the Lakers, after this.

The win gives the Bulls the tiebreaker over the Bucks as well, as the Bulls win the season series against their old coach 3-1.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 29-34 on the season. The Bulls now are the sole possessor of the eighth spot on the East. Next up is catching Philadelphia at seventh. The Bulls are currently 2.0 games behind Philadlephia.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 113 to 104 in a battle for the Eighth playoff seed. The Bulls entered the game 2.5 games behind the Bucks for the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference and left the Bradley Center trailing just 1.5 games.

The Bulls only had four players on their bench tonight: Lindsey Hunter, Aaron Gray, Thabo Sefolosha, and Kirk Hinrich. The small bench was a result of the Bulls trading Andres Nocioni, Drew Gooden, Cedric Simmons, and Michael Ruffin earlier in the day.

Kirk Hinrich played great in what might be his last game as a Chicago Bull. Kirk Hinrich had 31 points on 8-14 shooting, also going 5-8 from three point range. Hinrich really was the guy leading the Bulls to victory tonight, having a nice fourth quarter scoring the basketball. Hinrich also had 4 steals in the game.

The referees swallowed their whistles a lot tonight. A no call when Hinrich was hit by Charlie Villanueva when driving to the basket caused Hinrich to become heated. Hinrich used his anger positively, going on a scoring barrage just after this.

If Kirk Hinrich leaves the Bulls tomorrow, he was able to sneak in one last milestone. On his first three of the night, Kirk Hinrich passed up Scottie Pippen on the Bulls all time career three point list. Kirk Hinrich, who is at 669 three pointers as a Bull is now all alone at second, only behind Ben Gordon, who has 716 three pointers as a Bull.

Hinrich’s backcourt mates, Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon added in 18 points each. Rose had 9 assists to go along with his 18 points. Rose was really sloppy with the ball tonight, committing 7 turnovers.

Ben Gordon had his 18 points on just 6-15, making his offensive effort just mediocre efficiency wise. He had some nice moves to set up his shots, he just wasn’t hitting a lot of them tonight.

Luol Deng added in 21 points on 9-17 shooting. Deng started off the game strong, scoring 16 points in the first half, but really cooled off in the second half. The problem with Deng is a chucker. Like Nocioni, who was just traded, Deng puts a shot up nearly every time he touches the ball. Deng isn’t an offensive artisan like Ben Gordon, who works hard to get good looks to score the basketball. Deng instead just takes whatever shots he can get. When they’re going in, all is good. When they’re not, Deng looks like a scrub. This lack of good shot selection is the reason for Deng’s low true shooting percentage this season.

Richard Jefferson scored 32 points in just 28 minutes tonight. Deng and Sefolosha really weren’t doing that great of a job guarding Jefferson. The Bulls were probably at their best defensively at the three spot when they went to the three guard line up and Hinrich guarded Jefferson.

Charlie Villanueva scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Villanueva made a lot of body contact with Bulls players tonight, but the referees just let a lot of that slide. Some would complain about the officiating, but that is good physical basketball.

The Bulls front court was solid tonight. Joakim Noah had 4 points 9 rebounds and 1 block. Tyrus Thomas had 8 points 4 rebounds 2 blocks and 2 steals. Nothing special tonight, but they played good interior defense.

Ramon Sessions added in 12 points for the Bucks.

Both Vinny Del Negro and Scott Skiles were hit with technicals tonight.

This is the Bulls final game before the trade deadline, which is tomorrow at 2 PM CT.

With this win, the Chicago Bulls improve to 24-30 on the season.

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.

Last Friday, the Bulls defeated the hapless Milwaukee Bucks despite missing three of our key players (Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Tyrus Thomas) and another, Derrick Rose only played 5 minutes.

In the first half there was an altercation where Richard Jefferson began pushing on Andres Nocioni after Nocioni fouled him. Kirk Hinrich then jumped in and pushed Jefferson in the back.

After the game, Daily Herald writer Mike McGraw caught up with Richard Jefferson to inquire about the altercation, and Jefferson actually opened up and talked about the incident.

Richard Jefferson had the audacity to accuse Andres Nocioni of trying to hurt him. Jefferson said, “I’ve never hurt anybody, never been accused of being dirty. Derrick Rose, I went up after the ball, he got fouled. I’m not trying to hurt the young fellow. I’d never disrespect anybody. But Nocioni, can you say the same thing about him?”

What is more amazing is Jefferson’s skewed view of the events that took place.

“I went up after the ball on Rose. I didn’t try to knock him down. I didn’t try to go after the body. I went up and tried to block it, he fell down. If they want to take that like that’s something wrong… I played in almost 80 playoff games in my life. That’s a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball. It ain’t a hack, it ain’t a throw, it ain’t a grab, a wrap-up. I went after the ball. Watch the tape and see if I went after the block.”

Mr. Jefferson, you’re saying that you went after the ball while Nocioni was trying to hack at you and hurt you? Is this why you hit Derrick Rose in the back and grazed his head while never touching the ball? Is this also why Andres Nocioni knocked the ball out of your hands on his foul? Which one of you was actually going after the ball?

And then there is Tom Ziller who writes for AOL Fanhouse. Ziller wrote, “Andres Nocioni hammered Jefferson”. Ziller goes on to write, “You see, that’s how obvious it is that Nocioni is dirty: Jefferson feels it is insulting to even ask him if Nocioni is dirty.”

Is it really that obvious to you Mr. Ziller that Andres Nocioni is a dirty player? Does Nocioni emanate an aura of dirtiness? Perhaps Mr. Ziller could gain more clarity on the situation if he actually watched the game. Ziller admits in his article that he didn’t even watch the Bulls vs. Bucks game on Friday night. Ziller didn’t even bother to go look at a video of the altercation before writing this article. Was it too difficult to watch Sportscenter or go on ESPN.com and watch the game highlights so you could actually know what you were talking about?

Ziller then goes on to say that Nocioni is a player who has built a good portion of his game on hitting players harder than they’d like to be hit while Jefferson is a high-flying skilled player.

Ziller is correct in saying that Nocioni hits players harder than they would like to be hit, but in no way has Nocioni built his game on this. Nocioni only hits players harder than they would like to be hit because the NBA is filled with soft, whiney players like Richard Jefferson who cannot take what Jefferson himself calls “a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball.”

Jefferson said, “It’s like if Bruce Bowen gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? If Ron Artest gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? OK, that pretty much sums it all up, then.”

Should we not be surprised by you, a Milwaukee Buck, pulling a punk move to injure a player? It was the Bucks who gave Awvee Storey, who punched his own teammate Martynas Andriuskevicius in the back of the head leaving Andriuskevicius with a fractured skull. It was a Milwaukee Buck, Royal Ivey, who pathetically punched Aaron Gray in the family jewels in retaliation to Gray knocking Ivey out with a solid screen.

Now I think it is insane to think for a second that Richard Jefferson was trying to hurt Derrick Rose. But Jefferson is making very serious claims that Nocioni goes out on the court trying to hurt people.

Does Jefferson want to take the Bulls vs. Bucks rivalry down the same road as the Bulls vs. Heat rivalry from a few years ago? We can go down that route, but be warned Mr. Jefferson, you and your team lack both the talent and toughness to match up with the Bulls in this rivalry.