At the end of yesterday’s Bulls vs. Knicks game, a selfish and bad shot sunk the Bulls. The first was a drive to the basket in which Derrick Rose was blocked. The second was a contested three point shot. The Gordon play wasn’t that bad, as the Bulls were looking Gordon to bail them out with a three at that point. We’ve seen him hit three pointers in the past. The play just looked so bad because Gordon missed so poorly.

However, the Derrick Rose play should have gone differently. Derrick Rose needs to learn that it’s not always about making the big shot, it’s just about making the big play. The Christmas Day Game between the Spurs and Suns would be good viewing material for Derrick Rose. First, Amare Stoudemire made a pass to Grant Hill for an easy lay in with 4 seconds left. The play that was to come, was very similar to the play that unfolded in New York yesterday. Tony Parker drove to the basket, met help defense, and dished it to the wide open Roger Mason Jr. who sunk the open three.

As you can see by the screen cap below, Derrick Rose has Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, and Kirk Hinrich all wide open.

Derrick Rose ignored three wide open teammates at the end of the Knicks Game.

The logical play would have been to make a bounce pass to Gordon in the corner. Gordon would have then had a chance at a wide open three to give the Bulls a two point lead. Ben Gordon is the guy you want shooting the big shot if Derrick Rose is covered, as he was on this play. If Duhon was to rotate over, Gordon would just swing the ball to Kirk Hinrich, who would take the three.

Another option that Rose could have taken, would have been to twist in the air to throw a pass to Deng in the corner. Deng hit two crucial threes in the Cleveland game from the same spot.

Hopefully Derrick learns from this experience, and begins looking to make the big play during the clutch and not necessarily the big shot.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder 109 to 98 in an overtime loss at the United Center. The Bulls again failed to win three games in a row, something they haven’t done since the 2006-2007 season when they won 49 games.

This loss is an indictment on John Paxson as a general manager and Vinny Del Negro as a coach.

John Paxson has contructed one of the worst front courts in the league. Tonight, the Bulls did not play a legitimate center, opting to just play power forwards Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah. Although the only true center on the team is Aaron Gray, who isn’t very good. Paxson must begin looking to make a trade for a legitimate center immediately, if not, the team will continue to get murdered on the boards as they did tonight, getting outrebounde by the Thunder 59 to 37.

Vinny Del Negro of course did a very poor job coaching the game. The biggest complaint with Vinny’s coaching would have to be the lack of any offensive system. A team with the Bulls’ offensive talent should easily be able to defeat a team like the Thunder if they had an offensive system in place. If you go out and play glorified pickup ball every night, you open yourself up to losing to team’s such as the 5-32 Thunder.

The next complaint with Vinny’s coaching would have to be playin Joakim Noah over Tyrus Thomas down the stretch of the game. Noah simply doesn’t bring much to an NBA basketball team. He doesn’t have the body to play in the paint. While he did grab 11 rebounds tonight, he allowed Oklahoma City to grab offensive rebound after offensive rebound. Noah is simply too weak to play one of the big man positions in the NBA. He is easily bumped off balance by opposing big men, causing him to miss a rebound or miss an easy shot.

Tyrus Thomas had a solid defensive effort tonight, blocking 4 shots in 25 minutes. Thomas had 6 points to go along with his 4 blocks. If he would have been in the game down the stretch instead of Joakim Noah, the game’s outcome probably would have been different.

The Bulls also had a difficult time winning because Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon both had mediocre games.

Derrick Rose had 16 points on 8-18 shooting and 6 assists. Derrick Rose’s jumpshot looked really bad tonight. When Rose’s jumpshot isn’t falling, he has to attack the basket more.

Ben Gordon had a pretty good regulation, scoring 22 points on 9-15 shooting, but he wilted in overtime, missing all 4 of his field goal attempts. Gordon also had a lot of mental lapses, making quite a few dumb passes again and getting an offensive foul as the result of indecision on a fastbreak.

However, Rose and Gordon did a good job defensively against the Thunder guards. They held Earl Watson to 4 points on 2-10 shooting and Russell Westbrook 14 points on 5-20 shooting.

Unfortunately the Bulls bigs got killed up front as usual. Nick Collison scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Jeff Green had 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Nenad Krstic added 8 points. Joakim Noah and Drew Gooden allowed Oklahoma City to score too many points in the paint. The Thunder scored 54 points in the paint.

Drew Gooden had a solid game offensively and rebounding wise. Gooden finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Gooden was having a good game, but kind of fell apart down the stretch.

Kevin Durant had a good night. Durant finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds. He just has a knack for scoring the ball. The only thing holding back Durant from being a dominant player is his body. He needs to get in the weight room and start putting on some muscle so he isn’t so easily knocked off balance. On one play early in the game, Ben Gordon came in to give some help defense on Durant, caught the ball with his hand, and sent Durant down to the floor. You’d never see this happen to Lebron James. If Durant puts on the muscle, he can just fight through contact and continue on for the score.

Larry Hughes had a decent game. Hughes scored 16 points on 6-13 shooting. While Hughes wasn’t selfish for most of the game, he had two fastbreaks where he should have given the ball up to Derrick Rose. If the Bulls would have scored on one of these Hughes fastbreaks or the botched Gordon fastbreak, the Bulls would have won the game.

Andres Nocioni scored 11 points for the Bulls and Desmond Mason scored 11 for the Thunder.

There is no excuse for the Bulls to lose to the Thunder and Vinny should be reprimanded by management for this loss. Losses to 5-32 teams are unacceptable.

With this loss, the Bulls fall to 16-21 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls lost to the Miami Heat 90 to 77 at American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL.

The game was tied 64 to 64 going into the fourth quarter. From there on out, it was all Miami, as they outscored the Bulls 26 to 13 in the fourth.

The Bulls lost in part because of some poor coaching by Vinny Del Negro. Ben Gordon got off to a good start, scoring 11 points in the first quarter. Del Negro then benched Gordon for most of the 2nd quarter, assuring that Gordon would go cold. Del Negro needs to learn to leave in the hot hand. If the Bulls could have ridden Gordon’s hot hand in the 2nd quarter, the game may have had a better outcome.

Following the hot start, Gordon settled into a rather poor game. Gordon finished with 15 points on 6-16 shooting, 1 rebound, and 1 assist. There is not much to read into with Gordon’s low assist totals, as his teammates simply missed too many wide open shots off of Gordon passes for him to get assists. Gordon started out hot shooting wise, and was alright in the 3rd, but was cold in the fourth after having been frozen out of the offense in the 2nd half. Gordon did a good job handling the Heat’s constant double teams tonight.

Gordon and company did a nice job on Dwyane Wade, limiting him to 28 points 11-23 shooting, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists. The Bulls held Wade to less than his average on less than stellar efficiency. In addition, they did not let Wade have a big playmaking game, limiting him to 2 assists, well below his season average.

Ben Gordon is now one three point shot away from tying Scottie Pippen as the all time Chicago Bulls three point shooter.

The Bulls also found it difficult to win with Luol Deng leaving the game with an ankle injury. Deng had 8 points and 9 rebounds before leaving the game.

Derrick Rose had another poor game. Rose had 10 points on 3-14 shooting, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 5 turnovers. He did not look good at all, on either side of the ball, allowing Chalmers to get 16 points and 5 assists. When Rose is playing like this, he really hurts the Bulls.

Larry Hughes was the Bulls worst player though. Hughes had 13 points on 5-14 shooting. Hughes seems to be back to playing his selfish brand of basketball, and needs to be weaned out of the rotation if this selfish streak continues.

The Bulls got solid production out of Aaron Gray and Tyrus Thomas. Aaron Gray had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Tyrus Thomas had 6 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 1 block. The Bulls interior defense is improving a bit with Gooden out of the line up, but they’re offense appears to be worse with the absence of Gooden’s jumpshooting.

Michael Beasley played very good. Beasley had 14 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He looked really good on both sides of the ball. Keeping Beasley on a tight leash to hold him accountable on defense seems to be paying dividends for the Heat.

Andres Nocioni scored 10 points in the game.

The Bulls fall to 13-15 with tonight’s loss and are now on the outside looking in on the playoffs.