Eastern Conference

1. Cleveland Cavaliers
2. Orlando Magic
3. Boston Celtics
4. Detroit Pistons
5. Miami Heat
6. Atlanta Hawks
7. Toronto Raptors
8. Washington Wizards
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9. Chicago Bulls
10. Philadelphia 76ers
11. New York Knicks
12. Milwaukee Bucks
13. New Jersey Nets
14. Indiana Pacers
15. Charlotte Bobcats

Western Conference

1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. San Antonio Spurs
3. Dallas Mavericks
4. Portland Trail Blazers
5. Denver Nuggets
6. Phoenix Suns
7. Utah Jazz
8. New Orleans Hornets
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9. Golden State Warriors
10. Los Angeles Clippers
11. Memphis Grizzlies
12. Oklahoma City Thunder
13. Minnesota Timberwolves
14. Sacramento Kings
15. Houston Rockets

Eastern Conference First Round

1. Cleveland Cavaliers over 8. Washington Wizards (4-1)
4. Detroit Pistons over 5. Miami Heat (4-2)
3. Boston Celtics over 6. Atlanta Hawks (4-2)
2. Orlando Magic over 7. Toronto Raptors (4-0)

Eastern Conference Semi-Finals

1. Cleveland Cavaliers over 4. Detroit Pistons (4-2)
3. Boston Celtics over 2. Orlando Magic (4-3)

Eastern Conference Finals

3. Boston Celtics over 1. Cleveland Cavaliers (4-3)

Western Conference First Round

1. Los Angeles Lakers over 8. New Orleans Hornets (4-0)
4. Portland Trail Blazers over 5. Denver Nuggets (4-2)
3. Dallas Mavericks over 6. Phoenix Suns (4-3)
2. San Antonio Spurs over 7. Utah Jazz (4-1)

Western Conference Semi-Finals

1. Los Angeles Lakers over 4. Portland Trail Blazers (4-2)
2. San Antonio Spurs over 3. Dallas Mavericks (4-3)

Western Conference Finals

2. San Antonio Spurs over 1. Los Angeles Lakers (4-2)

NBA Finals

San Antonio Spurs over Boston Celtics (4-3)

Coach of the Year: John Kuester (Runner Up: Gregg Poppovich)
MVP: Lebron James (Runner Up: Dwight Howard)
Rookie of the Year: Tyreke Evans (Runner Up: Blake Griffin)
Sixth Man of the Year: Manu Ginobili (Runner Up: Leandro Barbosa)
Defensive Player of the Year: Dwight Howard (Runner Up: Ron Artest)
Most Improved Player: Brook Lopez (Runner Up: Michael Beasley)

The Chicago Bulls overcame some bad coaching by Vinny Del Negro with some clutch scoring by Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon to get a 105 to 102 victory over the Houston Rockets.

Derrick Rose was just fantastic tonight, and really was the leading force in getting the Bulls the victory. He had a monstrous 16 points in the fourth quarter, more than the entire Houston Rockets team. With 32 seconds left, Rose jack knifed for a fall away floater to give the Bulls a 104 to 102 lead.

After stopping some Ron Artest three point attempts, John Salmons made 1 of 2 free throws to give the Bulls a 105 to 102 lead. The Bulls then snuffed out Ron Artest again to escape with the victory.

The lineup of Derrick Rose, Ben Gordon, John Salmons, Joakim Noah, and Brad Miller got stop after stop to allow the Bulls to get back into the game and eventually grab the victory. The Bulls outscored the Rockets 34 to 14 in the fourth quarter.

In total, Derrick Rose had a tantalizing 22 points, 7 assists, 8 rebounds, and 3 steals. He was great tonight. When he is going with this type of aggressiveness, he is hard to stop, and truly looks like a superstar.

Ben Gordon was Rose’s partner in crime in the fourth. Gordon scored 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, including a pretty jumpshot over Yao Ming that tied the game at 102.

Vinny Del Negro pulled Ben Gordon less than 3 minutes into the third quarter. Vinny needs to learn that you need to keep your best players on the court. Rose, Gordon, those guys will make mistakes from time to time, but you have to let them play through their mistakes, as those are the two guys most likely to lead you to victory. And it’s not like Gordon was having a bad game. Almost all of his misses at that points were on some drives to the basket where Gordon attacked Yao, and he was playing some pretty tough defense. With Gordon on the bench, the Rockets outscored the Bulls 30 to 16 in the third quarter.

But Del Negro’s limitations are definitely in the X’s and O’s. The Bulls are playing Boylan Ball again. That is glorified pick up ball. They’re running very few offensive sets for most of the game and just looking for their perimeter players to create some opportunities.

Yao Ming really wasn’t that impressive tonight, only finishing with 17 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 blocks. He didn’t really take over on the offensive end tonight at all and didn’t really affect Rose all that much in the paint in the fourth quarter. Yao also was having some conditioning problems. After solid stretches of minutes, he could be seen lumbering down the court, and made into an ineffective player by his fatigue.

Ron Artest was great tonight, scoring 32 points and stealing the ball 3 times. He was an impressive 6-12 from three point land, with most of his misses on the last two Rocket possessions of the game. The Bulls left the Rockets open for too many threes tonight. They need to double team guys like Luis Scola less, and stay on the three point shooters.

The Bulls young front court was impressive tonight. Joakim Noah had 10 points, 15 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Tyrus Thomas added in 19 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks. What was really nice about these two is that they were attacking the rim, going for dunks, getting the Bulls the easy two points. Tyrus Thomas was also making his jumpers tonight.

The two former Kings were solid tonight. Brad Miller had 11 points and 4 assists and John Salmons added in 12 points and 6 rebounds.

Luis Scola had 16 points and 12 rebounds. The Bulls had a lot of difficulty guarding him, despite using the double team on him quite often.

Von Wafer had 11 points and Kyle Lowry had 10 points.

Kirk Hinrich had an ineffective 7 points on 3-9 shooting. Hinrich’s poor play was a large reason for the Rockets big third quarter.

Luol Deng and Tim Thomas both left the game with injuries.

The Bulls again wore black patches to honor Johnny Red Kerr and Norm Van Lier. Prior to the game, the Bulls honored them with a video montage and a moment of silence.

The Bulls have entered this weird phase, where they’re beating some good teams (Denver, Orlando, Houston) but losing to some really bad teams (Indiana, Washington).

With the win, the Bulls improve to 27-33 on the season. Tonight was a big win as the Bucks got the win in Washington. By winning, the Bulls remaing just 1 game behind Milwaukee for that 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Chicago Bulls failed to extend their three game winning streak to four in Houston tonight, losing 107 to 100 to the Houston Rockets.

This loss falls squarely on Vinny Del Negro and some weird coaching decisions. The biggest blunder was not bringing Aaron Gray to match up with Yao Ming after Joakim Noah fouled in. Instead, Vinny left a front court of Tyrus Thomas and Andres Nocioni in the game, which resulted in Yao Ming posting up Andres Nocioni on a few posessions. Vinny dared Houston to go inside to Yao Ming and Houston did, with great results.

The second blunder was leaving Kirk Hinrich in over Ben Gordon for more than half of the fourth quarter. This is just a matter of Vinny not knowing his own team. Kirk Hinrich has rarely done anything in the fourth quarter during his career. He was one of the worst clutch players in the NBA last year, while Gordon was one of the best. Sure, Ben was having a poor game, but time and time again, the Bulls had Ben Gordon explode in the fourth quarter after a poor first three quarters. (Pretty much every game during his rookie year, for example).

And Ben Gordon did just that when he actually did get into the game, scoring 8 points in a 1 minute 22 second stretch. It was good that the Bulls were able to close the gap some, even though they ultimately came up short. A 7 point loss is a lot better than the blowout that the Bulls were on course to suffer.

For Gordon, the game was a story of spurts. Ben Gordon came into the game shooting cold…had a hot streak to end the second quarter and to start the third quarter. Missed a few shots on some drives to the basket, then came back in late in the fourth and got hot again. Gordon finished with 20 points and 6 rebounds. Not too great of a night for him. He needs to be able to score more consistently throughout the course of the game.

Luol Deng was absolutely outstanding. He was scoring by making jumpshots and driving to the basket. Deng shot 8 free throws tonight. Deng finished with 28 points and 6 rebounds. Since coming back from injury, Deng has looked very aggressive. if Deng continues to play like he has been as of late, he will be doing plenty to fulfill his contract.

The Rockets front court absolutely destroyed the Bulls. Yao Ming had 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 blocks. The Bulls were completely overmatched by Yao’s size the entire night, although it was nice to see the Bulls attack Yao early in the game, and draw some early fouls on Yao. Luis Scola had 13 points and 18 rebounds. He gave the Bulls trouble on the boards.

The Bulls front court didn’t do terrible, they’re just overmatched talent and size wise. Tyrus Thomas had a really nice game, finishing with 14 points 13 rebounds 4 assists and 3 blocks. He was very active tonight, and gave the Bulls great help defense. Aaron Gray and Joakim Noah didn’t fare very well, but they were guarding Yao Ming for most of the game, and they’re just overmatched size and talent wise.

Derrick Rose had a nice little 12 points 7 assists and 7 rebounds game. Rose is really having difficulty scoring the ball efficiently as a result of his lack of three point shot and inability to get to the free throw line. Once again tonight, Rose had a sub-50 TS% night. He will have to evolve his offensive game in order to become the efficient scorer that the Bulls need.

Tracy McGrady had 16 points and 6 assists for the Rockets. Ron Artest had 10 points and 6 assists.

Kirk Hinrich had 10 points and 4 assists. He really was a non-factor. There is a big drop off in ball movement when Hinrich is in the game and Rose is not.

Andres Nocioni had 11 points on 4-9 shooting, but did not have a good game. As usual, Nocioni played little defense and played stupidly. One such instance was when Nocioni committed a foul as Houston was getting set to call a timeout.

Aaron Brooks exploded for 18 points off the bench. The Bulls left him open for three too often.

With this loss, the Chicago Bulls drop to 21-28 on the season.

From Sam Smith’s blog on Bulls.com:

It goes back to this preseason when the Bulls, Wizards, Nuggets and Clippers were in talks for a massive player deal. Those rarely come to fruition because of so many moving parts, though sources say this one was getting serious before Hughes got hurt and then Kirk Hinrich. I usually don’t pay much attention to these scenarios since GM’s talk all the time and come up with some crazier stuff than my e-mailers. And presumably everything has changed since the Nuggets later dealt for Chauncey Billups and the Clippers for Zach Randolph. I’ve heard different versions of this, but the Bulls supposedly were getting Chris Kaman and Antonio Daniels after everything settled. Who knows how close it ever was. But despite what the Clippers have been saying, they have had long interest in dealing Kaman, now out two weeks. And I’d assume especially now with Randolph playing well with Marcus Camby.

The Bulls should continue to pursue Chris Kaman. Kaman is averaging 13.9 PPG 9.4 RPG 1.9 BPG and 1.9 APG so far this year. I still do not see why the Clippers are intent on trading Kaman, but if they want to be foolish, Paxson should pounce on the opportunity to get a good center.

Paxson should start by trying to trade for Kaman using Hinrich, Nocioni, and the young bigs. But if the Clippers don’t bite at that, Paxson should not hesitate at swapping Luol Deng for Chris Kaman. The Bulls could easily reach a trade involving Deng, despite his BYC status, by using Drew Gooden as the filler. Trades involving Tyrus Thomas as the filler are also possibly, but much harder to use, and involves exploiting a loophole in the CBA involving the minimum salary trade exception. Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas for Chris Kaman and Brian Skinner would be an example of this.

By swapping Deng for Kaman, we get a better player at a more important position given the construct of our team, while doing no damage to our 2010 plans. If we still are unable to find a taker for Kirk Hinrich or Andres Nocioni by the start of 2009 free agency, we can turn our attention away from 2010 and focus on building through 2009 free agency and leveraging the contract of Larry Hughes.

In this scenario, we would also be able to re-sign Drew Gooden with no concerns of it messing up our 2010 plan. Losing Deng would not be that painful, as Shawn Marion and Ron Artest are likely to be available for the MLE this summer. Creating a starting lineup of Derrick Rose, Ben Gordon, Shawn Marion, Drew Gooden, and Chris Kaman would not be too bad of an alternative plan to 2010. We would have competent players at all positions.

Hopefully the Clippers remain intent on trading Chris Kaman and the Bulls get lucky and land him. He would be a great addition for this team.