The Chicago Bulls fell to the Miami Heat 95 to 87 last night in Miami.

The game was a closely fought contest for most of the game, but the Heat pulled away during crunch time, as the Bulls failed to execute down the stretch.

There were two major problems that caused the Bulls demise in this game.

The first, is that they lacked a player who would take the game by its horns and lead the team to victory. The game was closely fought throughout, and the Bulls did a good job on the defensive end, but at no point in the fourth quarter did anyone in the Bulls string together a few shots in a row to give the Bulls a solid 6-10 point lead.

The other big problem I noticed was that the team’s execution was poor in the clutch. This seemed more like the players being scared to step up and making the wrong basketball plays, rather than any systematic problems with the Bulls clutch strategy.

Derrick Rose turned the ball over as a result of a wreckless baseline drive of his, and Salmons turned the ball over with 23 seconds left as he couldn’t handle the ball.

There was one play where Kirk Hinrich dribbled out of a three point shot, showing that he didn’t want to step up and be the man in clutch time. Then Luol Deng got the ball near the three point line, and decided that he was going to force action. Deng drove to the hoop, and missed the runner (although it looked like basket interference on the Heat). It was nice to see Deng step up and try to be the man in clutch time, but it was a stupid basketball play.

Luol Deng should have shot the three. At that point, the Bulls were down 93-87. Deng took his layup with 30 seconds left in the game. If he would have taken the three, he could have cut the Miami lead to 3 points, with around 30 seconds in the ball game. The Bulls could have gotten a stop, and would have still had time to have a chance to tie it on the other end. However, Deng decided to drive in for a two point attempt. If he would have made the shot, the Bulls would have still been down by 4 points, and would have been forced to play the foul game.

The one big positive for the Bulls yesterday was their team defense. The strength of the Bulls defense yesterday was in the help defense of their big men and Luol Deng. The players effectively moved into driving lanes to stop the Heat’s penetration. They also helped out effectively when the Heat’s big men had the ball in the paint. The two weak spots in the Bulls’ defense so far has been Derrick Rose and John Salmons, both of whom have difficulty staying in front of their man, and both of whom have trouble chasing their man around, allowing the opponent to have too many open threes.

The star of this game for Miami was Udonis Haslem, who finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds off the bench. His rebounding and the midrange jumpers that he made were key in getting the Heat the victory.

Dwyane Wade added in 25 points, scoring his 10,000th career point in this game.

Luol Deng led the Bulls in scoring with 26 points. Deng had a nice game scoring 26 points and 8 rebounds. Deng was making his shots from midrange, which allowed him to score efficiently in the ball game. However, Deng still took 21 shots to get his 26 points. Deng really needs to work on that three point shot, so he can become a more efficient scorer. He scored efficiently tonight (56 TS%), but he isn’t always going to shoot that well from midrange, and when he’s not, his efficiency is going to suffer. 56 TS% is more around where we want Deng’s average for the season to be around, not his best games of the year, so I think Luol still needs quite a bit of work, but good performance tonight nonetheless.

John Salmons had his first good game of the year, scoring 17 points on 7-14 shooting. The alarming part is that Salmons only shot 1-5 from three point line. Salmons is going to need to make the three point shot in order to stretch the defense some, opening up more driving lanes for Derrick Rose.

The Bulls struggled at the point guard spot tonight. Kirk Hinrich put up a bad 7 points on 3-11 shooting, and Derrick Rose was downright awful, putting up 8 points on 4-15 shooting, along with 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

Tyrus Thomas had a nifty little game, finishing with 4 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 blocks. For some reason, Thomas only played 21 minutes in the game, which was hard to understand, because it seemed like Thomas was active out there, rebounding the basketball and blocking shots.

Joakim Noah gave the Bulls 10 points and 7 rebounds and Brad Miller chipped in 11 points.

Michael Beasley finished the game with 10 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Beasley strugged offensively, going 3-12 from the field, but he did some nice things on the defensive end, and he rebounded the ball well.

Mario Chalmers put in 11 points for the Heat, and Carlos Arroyo added 12 points off the bench.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 1-2 on the season, and are currently slotted as the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

The Bulls put up another good defensive performance last night holding the Heat to only 95 points. The Bulls just failed to execute down the stretch, as they lacked that player who can score in bunches to give you the lead or that player who hits the big shots in the clutch. The offense as a whole has been a big problem for the Bulls this year. They currently have the third worst offense in the league, with a 99.0 O-Rtg. Only the Charlotte Bobcats and Milwaukee Bucks have been worse.

In the first game this season the Heat beat the Bulls easily by 13 points. In the second game, the Bulls had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to win, until Thabo Sefolosha threw the ball directly to Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion dunked it in for the win. In the third game, John Salmons was stripped on the final posession in double overtime, which led to a Dwyane Wade buzzer beater three. The fourth time was the charm, as the Bulls decided to just blow out the Heat this time, beating them 106 to 87.

Again, this was a nice team win. No one really had a bad game, and the Bulls are beginning to play better as a team, moving the ball much better.

I think the win really started with the great outside shooting of Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons. When these two started hitting some shots in the third, in particular Salmons, the Bulls started to pull away.

Hinrich, who started at the point guard spot for the second straight game, scored 15 points, shooting 4-7 from three. Outside of a bad first quarter on defense, Hinrich did a pretty good job guarding Wade, slowing him down a bit. Wade finished with 31 points in the game, before being pulled for garbage time.

John Salmons led the Bulls in scoring with 27 points. He did a good job driving to the hoop and scoring, and hit some big shots in the third quarter to help the Bulls pull away. This is difference between the Bulls before the trade and after the trade. Before the trade, when Gordon struggled early on, the Bulls would probably fall behind in the third, and it would take a great fourth quarter performance from Rose or Gordon to come back. Now, with another great scoring option in Salmons, they can pull away when Gordon is struggling.

The Bulls got great performances out of their young big men. Joakim Noah had 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Tyrus Thomas had 15 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Thomas was just all over the place, blocking shots, and had some thunderous dunks, the best of which came on an alley oop from Derrick Rose. The great thing about the play of these guys is that it looks like the Bulls might be able to use them as trade chips for a really good player, and if not, they might become really good players for the Bulls.

Derrick Rose came off the bench and had a calm 9 points, 7 assist, and 5 rebound performance. He is starting to pull out a lot more highlight reel passes now.

Ben Gordon struggled with his shot early, missing some wide open three point attempts. Gordon found his stroke in the fourth quarter, hitting two threes. The Heat had difficulty stopping Gordon’s drive as well. Gordon finished with 18 points in the game. He’s been struggling to get going early in games, but has come back with good second halfs of late. Before the Bulls get to the playoffs, Gordon needs to figure out how to make his shots in the first half.

The Heat had four players in double figures other than Wade. Michael Beasley had 10 points off the bench and Mario Chalmers also had 10 points. Jermaine O’neal had 12 points and Udonis Haslem added in 13 points.

Brad Miller had 12 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists off the bench.

Dwyane Wade became the first player under 6′4″ to have 100 blocks in a season.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 35-38 on the season. The Bulls have now passed the Pistons and are the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

Good win for the Bulls tonight. I made a challenge for Del Negro after one of the Bulls embarassing losses a few weeks ago, and that was, if the bull sare under .500, even if they make the playoffs, he should be fired. He still has some work to go to get the bulls to .500, but I think he will do it. He has to go just 6-3 from here on out to make it back to .500. The next stretch of games is a perfect opportunity to do that. Their next five games are against Indiana, Toronto, indiana again, New Jersey, and New York. Actually, in the Bulls remaining 9 games, only Philadelphia has a better record than the Bulls, and the Bulls get Philly at home. The Bulls really should have a monster record down this final stretch. 6-3 should be the absolute minimum, but with most of those teams going into tank mode, and the majority of the Bulls games being at home, the Bulls could potentially win out. I don’t think they will, but it’s definitely a possibility with the easiness of their schedule. The Bulls can really make a run at that fifth seed, they’re only 3.5 games out, and they have Philly one more time this season. Atlanta is definitely a winnable series for the Bulls.

One of my favorite plays of the game was a four on one fastbreak in which Rose made a nice no look bounce pass to John Salmons who flushed it down. Yes it was a beautiful play, but what I liked even more about this play is that the Bulls had four guys running the court, beating their Heat counterparts down the floor. We have the athletes and speed to do this, so it’s nice to see them doing this.

What do I think about the Miami Heat? Outside of my guy Dwyane Wade, they’re absolute crap. Michael Beasley has a lot of skill, but he hasn’t begun to put it together on the court yet. Even if Beasley improves, they won’t be that good of a team next year. It’s for this reason why I think they will aggressively pursue Ben Gordon this offseason. They need talent there to keep Wade happy. The thing Paxson has to remember going into this offseason is that the only way that a sign and trade can be completed is if the Bulls agree to it. Don’t make that an option (okay, unless the Heat are willing to part with Wade or Beasley). If Paxson takes that option off the table, then all the Heat can offer is the MLE, which the Bulls could easily beat, with an offer such as the one they offered last summer.

Oh, and with the win, the Bulls have now strung 3 wins in a row. This is the Bulls third three game winning streak of the year. This team is truly amazing…in comparison to last year’s mess.

I had to reflect on the game tonight for quite awhile. There was a lot to take in tonight. What was clear though, is we were treated to probably the best game of the entire NBA season. Unfortunately we came up short tonight, partly of our own doing, partly because we were playing against the best scorer in the NBA. But tonight was a special game to get to see.

The game fell into a marquee battle between Ben Gordon and Dwyane Wade. Ben Gordon was just amazing tonight. He scored the Bulls last 15 points of regulation, and making 5 three pointers in the fourth quarter to rally the Bulls back from 14 down to tie the game and bring it into overtime.

With the Bulls up by 2, Ben Gordon gets to the free throw line and missed the first free throw. He made the second, to put the Bulls up three. This is probably Gordon’s first clutch free throw miss of his career, and this one definitely hurt. If he made the free throws, the Bulls would have won in regulation, simple as that. You have to make your free throws in the clutch.

Following Gordon’s misses from the line, Dwyane Wade sank a nice three point shot over John Salmons to tie the game 104 to 104.

The end of regulation was disappointing in my opinion. The ball should have been in Gordon’s hands. Derrick Rose has proven that he can’t hit the big shot at the end of games. Same thing unfolded tonight, Rose drove to the basket, put up a bad shot and missed.

It looked like the Bulls were going to lose in the first overtime, being down 117 to 112 after Beasley put in a pair of free throws with 32 seconds left. But Gordon found his stroke again, putting in a 3 to make it a 2 point game. Dwyane Wade then missed a pair of free throws to give the Bulls another shot. John Salmons was fouled in the paint and made both free throws to tie the game at 117. Dwyane Wade on the other end missed a reverse layup. Salmons bothered Wade enough to make it into a layup attempt instead of a dunk, but it was still a very good look, and Wade should have made that. Just a completely blown defensive play, but they got lucky, and the game went into double overtime.

With the Bulls down 125 to 123, Tyrus Thomas had a big block against Udonis Haslem to get the Bulls a crucial stop. Then on the other end, after Rose missed a layup, Thomas grabbed the ball for a putback slam to make it a 125 to 125 tied ball game. Wade then made a layup, and Salmons responded with a jumper to tie the game at 127. The Bulls then got the stop as Haslem missed a jumpshot and Rose rebounded.

The Bulls were now in a great position, they were either going to win the game or bring it into overtime. But with just 3 seconds left Wade stole the ball from Salmons, drove down court, and put in a floating three at the buzzer to give the Heat the 130 to 127 victory.

The ball should have been in Gordon’s hands at the end too. John Salmons was the only person they were really able to get the ball into, so he just ran with it. It didn’t look like Vinny Del Negro drew up any type of play here. It seemed like whoever caught it got to decide what they were doing. The Bulls should have put the ball in Gordon’s hands and let him create a shot for himself. He has proven time and time again that he is great at hitting the big shots, so there is no use denying his gifts.

In the end, Dwyane Wade finished with an astonishing 47 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 3 blocks. This was just an all around great game from Wade. He scored a lot, hit the big shots, set up his teammates, and played tough defense.

Ben Gordon was great as well, finishing with 43 points, whilst going 8-11 from three point land. He helped himself in a big way tonight in his record pursuit. He is now just 15 three pointers away from setting the record for the most three point shots made by a player in the first five years of their career.

John Salmons was just solid tonight, scoring 29 points, but on 24 field goal attempts. He has to score at a high efficiency. But the good thing is that Salmons hit some big shots in the overtime periods, so he was playing well when it really mattered.

Derrick Rose had another bad game. He had 23 points, but took 25 shots to get that. He only had 3 assists. Rose is a point guard, and he needs to start playing like one. That means setting up his teammates to score. When he drives to the basket, it’s almost always about Rose scoring. It’s never about playing some kick and drive offense. He should have been taking notes of Dwyane Wade tonight. Wade would get into the lane, and then kick it out to his teammates, getting them some easy scores.

The Bulls big men were okay. Joakim Noah had 11 points and 15 rebounds. I thought he had a valiant effort tonight and played well. Brad Miller had 9 points and 10 rebounds. He had too many defensive lapses tonight, giving the Heat easy scores at the basket. Tyrus Thomas was checked out mentally for most of the game, culminating in a technical foul in the third quarter. Thomas did end up redeeming himself a bit with two big plays in the second overtime after Noah fouled out.

Michael Beasley had 18 points and 7 rebounds off the bench and the Heat’s other record, Mario Chalmers, had 17 points and 5 assists.

Jermaine O’neal had 11 points, Jamario Moon 13 points, and Udonis Haslem 10 points.

The Bulls only played 7 players today, as Luol Deng and Tim Thomas were out with injuries, and Vinny doesn’t seem to trust the rest of his players. This is actually a pretty good thing, because our first 7 players are really, really good, while the bench players aren’t very good at all.

Overall, tonight was a good effort. Vinny actually made some good in game coaching decisions, such as the inbounds play that netted Salmons a dunk and one. But he also made some coaching blunders, such as not drawing up a play for Gordon at the end. This loss isn’t going to sink our season, but losing a bunch of close one’s like this really hurts your team. This team is probably closer than a lot of people think. Right now, for the Bulls, they just have a big problem with finishing really close games. They have lost a bunch of close ones this year, that easily could have been won if Vinny used a better end of game strategy, such as getting the ball to Ben Gordon.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 29-35 on the season. The Bulls are now tied with Milwaukee for the eigth seed again. The Bulls of course have the tiebreaker as they defeated the Bulls 3-1 in the season series.

As John Paxson’s two lottery big men draft selections from recent years prove that they are not busts, one of Paxson’s first round picks, Thabo Sefolosha, continues to show that he is a bust.  With the game tied at 93 points with 4 seconds left in the game, the Bulls had a shot to win the game in regulation.  Sefolosha, who was inbounding the ball, passed the ball right to Dwyane Wade, who called a timeout as he was falling out of bounds.  The very next play, Tyrus Thomas rotated to stop a cutting Dwyane Wade.  Sefolosha rotated late onto Marion, who dunked on Thabo to win the game.

Ben Gordon had the entire corner wide open.

Thabo Sefolosha needs to go, he is a bust.  He let down his entire team.  That clutch block by Joakim Noah which ended in a Tyrus Thomas dunk off a pass by Ben Gordon?  Worthless.  The three clutch free throws by Ben Gordon to tie the game at 93?  Worthless.  The clutch steal by Kirk Hinrich to give the Bulls a chance to win in regulation?  Worthless.  When you are tied with 4 seconds remaining in the game and posession of the ball, you don’t lose the game in regulation.  It’s not supposed to happen, but it did, and it was all Sefolosha’s fault.

The worst part of this all is that Ben Gordon was wide open.  Ben Gordon would have had a wide open shot in the corner.  All Sefolosha had to do was lob a floater to Gordon and Gordon would have had a wide open look for potentially his second straight game winner.

Ray Allen will now miss the Allstar game and the East squad is in need of a replacement. Well, tonight Ben Gordon put in a pretty good audition for the spot, scoring 34 points and grabbing 5 rebounds. Gordon did it all tonight, making jumpshots, driving to the basket, dunking, drawing fouls, banking in some shots, and hitting his free throws. It’s a shame that Thabo deprived him of a shot at the game winner tonight.

Derrick Rose had a good, 18 points and 6 assist game. This was just some good solid basketball from Rose. Nothing special, but solid. Unfortunately, he was outplayed by the number two pick in the draft, Michael Beasley. Beasley had 21 points on a very efficient 9-10 shooting, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He was a big reason the Heat won tonight.

Kirk Hinrich had a nice game, finishing with 8 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals. His defense on Wade was great for stretches. Wade, who had 24 points on 9-23 shooting, did light up Hinrich for 6 straight points late in the fourth, but it’s not like anyone, besides maybe a prime Scottie Pippen, would have done much better. Wade also had 7 assists and wore an American flag band aid under his eye.

The Bulls young front court had another nice night. Tyrus Thomas had 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He did have 6 turnovers to go along with that though. Joakim Noah added in 5 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He had 4 turnovers. While neither could be considered stellar tonight, both had solid overall games, and were involved in some big plays down the stretch.

Daequan Cook added 14 points, making 4 three pointers. Shawn Marion, who had the game winning dunk, scored 12 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Udonis Haslem had 10 points in the game.

Luol Deng had another bad game, scoring 6 points on 2-6 shooting. Going into the trade deadline, the Bulls will have to take a long, hard look at whether they should cut their losses with Deng or not.

And a little more on Thabo Sefolosha tonight. He was horrible tonight, putting up one of the emphasis 0-0-0-0-0 games. That is 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, and 0 blocks. No positive statistics in the game. He was horrible.

This begs the question, why did Vinny put him in at the end of the game? Derrick Rose would have been a better option to be throwing the inbounds play.

But it’s hard to criticize Vinny too much for this collapse. An NBA player should be expected to be able to make a simple inbounds pass. The play Vinny drew up was actually pretty good. If Sefolosha would have made a good pass, Gordon would have been wide open in the corner with a chance to win the game.

With the loss, the Bulls go into the Allstar Break with a record of 23-30.