According to ESPN Chicago, Kirk Hinrich will replace John Salmons in the starting lineup and Taj Gibson will replace Brad Miller in the starting lineup.

Guard Kirk Hinrich and forward Taj Gibson will be fixtures in the Chicago Bulls’ starting lineup for the foreseeable future.

Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro told reporters after Thursday’s practice that Hinrich and Gibson would replace John Salmons and Brad Miller as starters.

Brad Miller had to be removed from the starting lineup. His play has become pathetic, as he has only scored 2 points in his last 4 games. Taj Gibson, who is the third most efficient scorer on the Bulls, was a logical replacement. Hopefully Tyrus Thomas will be reworked into the starting lineup once he gets a few games under his belt, as he returns from his injury.

Replacing John Salmons with Kirk Hinrich makes little sense though. I guess something had to be shaken up, as Salmons has been playing poorly, but Hinrich has played much worse than Salmons. While Salmons is scoring at a dismal 48.2 TS%, Kirk Hinrich is scoring at an even worse 43.9 TS%. Kirk Hinrich shouldn’t be rewarded for his pathetic play.

However, because of Bulls’ ownership’s cheapness (failure to sign Derrick Byars, despite his great preseason play), the Bulls have few other options to try out. The only other options would be to start Jannero Pargo at shooting guard, or to start Tyrus Thomas or James Johnson at small forward, and move Deng down to small forward.

Bulls ownership has really created a mess with their cheapness. If the Bulls choose to stand pat, the only chance for the Bulls to salvage the season is for Tyrus Thomas to come in and make a big impact. Unfortunately, if Thomas does become the hero of the Bulls season, resurrecting the team from their crappy play, it is unlikely that he would be retained into next season.

Just a day after blowing a 35 point lead, the Bulls attempted a daring comeback of their own, whittling a once 22 point Knicks lead down to one point with 1:41 remaining in the game.

The Bulls comeback, unlike the Kings, came up short, and the Bulls lost the game 88-81.

The Bulls had their opportunities down the stretch, but once again failed to come up in clutch situations.

First, with the Bulls down three, Kirk Hinrich ignored the inbound play called by Vinny Del Negro, instead attempting an idiotic alleyoop to Joakim Noah, but the Bulls got the ball back.

Derrick Rose then bounced a pass that was meant for Taj Gibson out of bounds. It was a good idea for the Bulls to get a score, as Taj Gibson was standing there wide open. The problem of course is that Gibson is a string bean who can’t hold position in the post, which forced Rose to do a bounce pass (which Gibson wasn’t able to catch for whatever reason) instead of a regular pass for the easy dunk.

Even then, I don’t like the idea of passing it into Gibson at that point in the game. At that point, the Bulls were down by 3 points with 29.8 seconds left. The score would have been quick, and would have allowed the Bulls to go for the stop, and try to get the win with a one point game instead of playing the foul game, but the Bulls still would have had to score once more, likely with only a few seconds left, as the Knicks probably would have burned down the clock. You have to play to tie the game in situations like this, not to put yourself down 1.

Of course early on, it didn’t look like the Bulls were even going to be in late game pressure situations, as they were getting blown out early. But Derrick Rose led a comeback, scoring 16 points in the third quarter. Rose finished the game with 26 points.

Once Rose got the comeback started, Deng helped out a bit, getting going himself. Deng finished with 23 points on the game, although he took 23 shots to do it.

The Bulls defense was fine in the second half of this game, holding New York to only 35 points. But the Bulls continue to lose because they cannot score the ball.

Everyone in this game, except Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson, had poor scoring efficiencies. When only 34 of your team’s points are coming from efficient scoring, you’re offense is going to be terrible, as the Bulls offense was last night, and you are going to lose a lot of games, as the Bulls have been doing all season long.

The game saw some big rebounding numbers from Joakim Noah and David Lee. Noah finished the game with 10 points and 21 rebounds. Noah struggled scoring the ball, going 4-13 from the field.

However, David Lee outplayed Noah, finishing with 18 points and 21 rebounds. Lee hit the shot to put the Knicks up five points with 5 seconds remaining in the game.

John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich continued their poor play. Salmons finished with 7 points on 2-9 shooting, and Hinrich finished with 5 points on 2-7 shooting.

Del Negro actually decided to bench John Salmons and Brad Miller to start the third quarter. Both players have played horribly for the entire season.

Danilo Gallinari finished the game with 11 points on 2-13 shooting, but also had 3 blocks. I think Gallinari is a guy that a 2010 free agent like Lebron might want to play next to. He seems like a good fit next to a ball dominant player because of his ability to make the three point shot.

Al Harrington gave the Knicks 20 points off the bench, and Wilson Chandler added 16 points. Jared Jefferies finished the game with 10 points.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 10-17 on the season.

On Saturday night, the Bulls gave the fans their first Big Macs of the years, beating the Atlanta Hawks 101-98.

Monday night, it looked like the Bulls were set to give the fans Big Macs in back to back games. By the second quarter of the Bulls game against the Sacramento Kings, I was declaring that it looked like the Bulls would win this game. With 8:50 remaining in the third quarter, the Bulls were up by 35 points, 79-44, and easily on way to delivering the fans the greasy burgers they love.

However, the Bulls only scored 19 points in the final 20 minutes and 50 seconds of the game, falling 2 points short of the 100 points needed for the Big Mac. Not only did the Bulls fail to reach 100 points, but they also managed to squander their 35 point lead, losing the game 102-98.

This is just about the most embarrassing collapse in NBA history. It was the biggest comeback since 1996, when the Utah Jazz came back from

However, this game was looking like a blowout for the Bulls at one point, so what was going right that allowed the Bulls to create such a large lead in the first place?

Well the short answer is that the Kings were playing Andres Nocioni, who is horrible (and all the turnovers the Kings were committing early in the game). I was one of Nocioni’s harsher critics in his final years here. Loved the guy his first few years, but he had become an abomination in his last year or so here. The guy chucked up bad shots, and wandered around on defense like a chicken with his head cut off. He was simply an on the court cancer.

Unsurprisingly, this is the Nocioni that showed up at the United Center last night. Luol Deng took advantage of Nocioni’s horrid defense early, scoring on a variety of slash and cuts to the basket. Derrick Rose even got involved with a pick and roll that involved Deng. Nocioni appeared confused what to do on the pick and roll, which led to some easy scoring opportunities for the Bulls.

The turning point was when Paul Westphal benched Nocioni, who finished with 3 points on 1-7 shooting and a -28 +/-, for the rest of the game. The Kings defense tightened up, while their offense caught fire, leading their comeback.

Even after their collapse, the Bulls had the opportunity to win the game in the clutch, but no one stepped up and got them the win.

Kirk Hinrich didn’t step up, letting Tyreke Evans score on him at will. Tyreke Evans, who finished with 23 points, with 9 of them coming in the last 2:28 of the game, is a bit of an amazing player, as seen by his shot over Luol Deng’s tight defense, but Hinrich’s defense was weak, making it easy for Evans to score.

One of the more disappointing moments of the game was when Tyreke Evans missed a layup with 19 seconds remaining, and the Bulls failed to secure the defensive rebound, forcing the Bulls to foul.

Even then, the Bulls had a chance to tie. Derrick Rose missed short on a little one handed fall away in the paint with 8 seconds remaining in the game. The Bulls were forced to foul, and Udrih hit both free throws, making it a 102-98 Kings victory.

Luol Deng finished the game with 26 points, but faded late in the game. Deng scored 14 points making his first 7 shots, completely abusing Nocioni.

Derrick Rose finished with 24 points and 7 assists. Kirk Hinrich had 14 points and 8 rebounds, Taj Gibson had 10 points, and John Salmons had 14 points and 6 steals.

For the Kings, John Thompson had 14 points. The Kings got a lot of help off their bench, with Beno Udrih scoring 16 points, Ime Udoku scoring 17 points, and Sergio Redriguez scoring 10 points.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 10-16 on the season.

Closing Comments:

It’s hard to see Vinny Del Negro lasting too much longer with a loss like this. The Bulls have a knack for firing coaches on Christmas Eve, and if the Bulls come out flat against the Knicks, Del Negro might join Tim Floyd and Scott Skiles as coaches fired on Christmas Eve by the Bulls.

The Bulls under Del Negro haven’t exactly been horrible as a whole. They are 51-57 in regular season games, and 3-4 in playoff games. 6 games under .500 isn’t bad for a coach with no coaching experience. Sure, it’s not a winning record, but Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t give Del Negro a winning team.

However, where Del Negro will likely lose his job is the style of losses the Bulls have suffered. When you’re losing to one win teams, being blown out, and blowing 35 point leads, it is unavoidable that you will end up on job life support, which Del Negro should now be on.

The Chicago Bulls have been blownout in two consecutive games. First Friday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers, 101-87, and then last night against the Toronto Raptors

Cleveland Cavaliers 101 vs. Chicago Bulls 87

In this first game, the Bulls held tough with the Cavs in the first half, trailing by only 1 point at the end of the first half.

The Bulls were able to hang tough with the Cavs because of a strong first half from Taj Gibson, who finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds.

In the second half, it was all Cavs as they went on to the easy victory. The victory was so easy for the Cavs, it caused Lebron James to begin dancing in the middle of the game.

This caused a verbal altercation between Joakim Noah and Lebron James, in which Noah shouted to James, according to Ric Bucher, “This is so ****ing old, you’re a b**ch.”

It is good to see this type of fire in Joakim Noah, and to stand up for his team.

Lebron James had a good game as usual, finishing with 23 points and 11 assists. James made it difficult for Deng to find open shots, limiting him to 11 points on 4-9 shooting.

Daniel Gibson finished with 15 points on 7-9 shooting.

There were bad games all around for the Bulls. John Salmons finished with 12 points on 5-12 shooting, Derrick Rose had 13 points on 5-16 shooting, and Joakim Noah had 7 points on 2-7 shooting and 10 rebounds.

For the Cavs, Shaquille O’neal had 8 points on 4-5 shooting, Mo Williams had 15 points and 7 assists, and Anderson Varejao had 10 points.

With the loss, the Bulls fell to 7-10 on the season.

Toronto Raptors 110 at Chicago Bulls 78

Vinny Del Negro rested his starters in the fourth quarter against the Cavs, but that proved to be useless as they were getting outplayed badly from the get go by the Toronto Raptors.

Joakim Noah played well, scoring 9 points on 3-3 shooting and grabbing 7 rebounds in 18 minutes. He was ejected in the third quarter after receiving his second technical foul.

I think this will be a hard season for Noah, as the Bulls are going to get embarrassed in a lot of their losses as a result of a lack of ability to score the ball, and I think Noah is going to take it hard.

John Salmons was solid too, scoring 13 points on 6-12 shooting, but the rest of the team played poorly. Derrick Rose had 9 points on 3-9 shooting, and Luol Deng had 9 points on 4-9 shooting.

Chris Bosh was dominant for the Raptors, posting 25 points and 12 rebounds.

Four other Raptors scored in double figures. Demar Derozan finished with 11 points, Marco Bellinelli with 15 points, Antoine Wright with 10 points, and Rasho Nesterovic with 12 points.

The most embarrassing moment of the game came for the Bulls at the third quarter, when Jarrett Jack decided to pick up the ball and tie his shoe. None of the Bulls made any attempt to steal the ball from Jack.

With this embarrassing loss, the Bulls fall to 7-11 on the season.

Closing Comments

This season looks like it is going to take a dip towards the ugly. The Bulls are a team that does nothing well on the basketball court. They can’t score, and after a strong defensive start, their defense can no longer stop anyone. Following the loss to the Raptors, the Bulls were ranked 27th in Offense and 19th in Defense, down from 15th in Offense and 18th in Defense last season. In losing Ben Gordon, the Bulls made themselves one of the worst offensive teams in the league while also making no improvements on the defensive end. That is a recipe for disaster, and that is the exact word that can be used to describe the Bulls season thus far.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 99-97 last night after Brad Miller failed to convert on a potential game tying shot.

The final shot has become a subject of debate among fans, as many have felt that Derrick Rose should have been the one taking the final shot, and not Brad Miller.

Derrick Rose absolutely made the correct basketball play. He drew the defensive attention, and kicked it to the open man. Brad Miller has been a pretty good scorer in clutch situations, and is arguably the Bulls most clutch player, so he is not a bad option to take the final shot. He just missed, and missed shots happen.

If Rose had forced up a shot there, he would have been blocked by Andrew Bogut. Rose could have tried to drive past Bogut, but it appeared that Bogut was playing good positional defense on that play, and would have likely stopped Rose’s drive.

The point guard battle didn’t quite live up to the hype, as both Rose and Jennings put up average performances.

It actually looked like Rose was getting set to have a special game, but he ended up fading as the game went on. There was a stretch in the game, where Rose got aggressive, and repeatedly attacked Brandon Jennings, scoring with a lot of success. Unfortunately Rose’s aggressiveness led him into taking some bad shots, leading to him finishing the night with only a 51.9 TS%.

Rose finished with 19 points and 7 assists total in the game. Brandon Jennings finished with 15 points and 8 assists. Jennings didn’t score the ball with the best efficiency, shooting 5-15, but made up for that somewhat by shooting 3-4.

The impressive thing about Jennings is his aggressiveness and court vision. He forces offensive option by attacking the defense with his blazing speed.

The Bulls got some good offensive performances from their wings. John Salmons finished with 23 points on 8-15 shooting and Luol Deng finished with 22 points on 7-14 shooting and 14 rebounds. It’s encouraging to see the Bulls wings be able to both score in a high volume at a good efficiency in the same game.

Joakim Noah finished with 16 points and 17 rebounds. I felt Noah was abused a little defensively early in the game, but he picked up his intensity in around the middle of the third quarter, which led to much better defense by the Bulls.

Noah is still a bit small to effectively play the center position. Andrew Bogut just outmatched him in length, which allowed Bogut to put up a monster 22 points, 15 rebound, 3 steal, and 4 block game. Bogut was huge down the stretch defensively, altering shots on the Bulls drives to the basket.

For the Bucks, Charlie Bell scored 16 points, Ersan Ilyasova scored 13 points, and Carlos Delfino scored 15 points.

It is a bit troublesome that Vinny Del Negro still refuses to play James Johnson when Brad Miller is not producing, and Lindsey Hunter and Jannero Pargo are combining for 32 minutes.

What the Bulls are doing right now is clearly not working, as they have lost five straight. Johnson clearly has a lot to offer the Bulls from a talent perspective, so why not see what you have in Johnson, when what you’re currently doing is resulting in loss after loss?

With their fifth straight loss, the Bulls fall to 6-9 on the season.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Kirk Hinrich will visit a specialist on Monday or a thumb injury that he suffered while practicing before the Bulls game against the Blazers.

On the one hand, an MRI revealed the injured ligament remains attached to the bone, unlike last season when Hinrich tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb and missed 31 games after surgery.

On the other, Hinrich is visiting a specialist Monday, five full days after suffering the injury at a Wednesday practice in Oregon. Coach Vinny Del Negro wouldn’t rule Hinrich out for Monday’s game, but the fact he didn’t practice Saturday and still has swelling doesn’t bode well.

It is hard to get a read on how serious of an injury that Hinrich has right now. It sounds like the injury isn’t quite as bad as what he suffered last year, but how bad the injury appears to be up for debate. The following quote from Vinny Del Negro sheds some more light on the uncertainty of Hinrich’s injury.

Asked if the Bulls have any plans to sign an extra guard, Del Negro demurred.

“We’re going to wait and see what happens with that evaluation on Monday and then make a decision,” Del Negro said. “We weren’t even sure if Jannero was going to practice because of a little shoulder impingement.”

It sounds like the Bulls are completely uncertain of the extent of the injury right now. It sounds like the Bulls won’t truly know how badly Hinrich is injured until the specialist sees him.

If Kirk Hinrich is out for any type of significant period of time, it is pertinent that the Bulls sign someone, as the team will simply fail because of their lack of backcourt depth.

The Tribune lists Wally Szczerbiak, Jerry Stackhouse, and Antonio Daniels as some of the options. Another option that goes unmentioned is Rashad McCants.

Wally Szczerbiak averaged 7.0 points on 58.1 TS% last season in 74 games for Cleveland, shooting 41.1% from three point territory. Unfortunately, Szczerbiak is still rehabbing from knee surgery, and may not be able to give the Bulls immediate help.

Antonio Daniels averaged 3.1 points on 53.1 TS% last season in 61 games with the New Orleans Hornets.

Jerry Stackhouse averaged 4.2 points on 33.3 TS% last season in 10 games for Dallas.

Rashad McCants averaged 10.3 points on 55.3 TS% in 24 games after being traded to the Sacramento Kings at the trade deadline. McCants failed a physical with Houston to begin the year.

The Bulls should immediately cross Antonio Daniels and Jerry Stackhouse off their list of options. Neither player appears capable of positively impacting an NBA team at this point, and would both likely be a downgrade from Jannero Pargo.

Wally Szczerbiak is probably the most intriguing of these options because of his size and ability to shoot the three point shot. However, if he is rendered useless because of injuries, he is not an option. That would leave Rashad McCants, who has health questions of his own.

Even if McCants is healthy, he will not do much to positively contribute to the Bulls. His sole positive contributions would just be being better than Jannero Pargo and Lindsey Hunter, which isn’t much of a contribution of all.

The Bulls of course could explore signing Allen Iverson, but the Bulls front office is unlikely to sign a player like Iverson, and there is also strong rumblings that the 76ers might sign Iverson, so he may not be an option for the Bulls in a few days.

One thing is for sure, if Hinrich is out, the Bulls have to sign someone, and if Hinrich is out, the season will probably get ugly.

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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