New Orleans Hornets
Chicago Bulls Back @ United Center to take on L.A. Clippers
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, NBA, New Orleans Hornets, Philadelphia 76ers, Sports | No Comments
The Chicago Bulls are happy to be back at the United Center despite their recent road success. The bulls finished up their 7-game road trip with an amazing 5-game winning streak over 5 Western Conference teams with winning records. Not sure if the Bulls have ever done that before, but it is shocking to think that Head Coach Vinny Del Negro was able to orchestrate that feat. The Bulls got a little lucky on Friday night against the Hornets in New Orleans, as David West threw an errant pass to Chris Paul with less than 10 seconds to play that gave the Bulls another shot at tying the game to force overtime. After Derrick Rose’s shot was partially deflected, Luol Deng knocked home a “putback” with just 0.2 left on the clock, and the Bulls took care of business in overtime. Deng led the Bulls with 26 points; Rose chipped in 18 of his own; Joakim Noah scored 13 points and grabbed 18 boards, while rookie Taj Gibson scored 8 points with 8 rebounds to boot. Del Negro continues to get a balanced attack out of all of his players each and every night.
Deng summed up the Bulls renewed sense of urgency and confidence best: “When you’re winning, everything is positive. We’re going into games expecting to win. A game like that, if we had lost four in a row, we might have lost it. But the mentality right now is we can win every game.”
The Bulls are back home for a game against the Clippers on Tuesday night at the United Center. They go back on the road for quick trips to Philadelphia and Atlanta after that, but then return home for a big game against the Miami Heat on Saturday night. Four games in 5 days is never easy, especially with travel mixed in there, but if the Bulls can go 2-2, that will keep them over .500 as the All-Star break approaches. I’m not quite sure how Del Negro is doing it, but he appears to have his team focused and ready to take their play to the next level. Let’s just hope they can keep it going for the final 2+ months of the season!
Rose, Bulls Cruising Right Along…
Thursday, January 28th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, NBA, New Orleans Hornets, Sports | 1 Comment
The Chicago Bulls are cruising right along after a 4th straight road win last night – 96-86 over the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was the 4th straight game that the Bulls defeated a Western Conference with a winning record on the road. Coming into the current 7-game road trip, the Bulls had won a TOTAL of 4 road games all season long. With last night’s win, the Bulls assured themselves of a winning record on the trip (5-2 or 4-3), even if they lose to the Hornets in New Orleans on Friday night.
Derrick Rose led the way with 26 points, 7 assists and 3 rebounds. Joakim Noah still recovering from a foot injury scored 13 points and grabbed 11 boards. Loul Deng chipped in with 17 points, while rookie Taj Gibson set a personal career-high with 15 rebounds – nice balance yet again.
The Bulls are now 22-22 – at the .500 mark for the 1st time since November 21, 2009 when the Bulls were 6-6. The Bulls are tied for the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference with the Charlotte Bobcats and they trail the Toronto Raptors by just 1 game for the 5th seed in the East. Crazy stuff.
I’m sure the Bulls will do something really annoying in the next few weeks (maybe sooner) that will make me come back down to reality. But right now, I’m going to savor this long stretch of consistent solid play from the Bulls…
Bulls Continue to Frustrate Fans with Erratic Play
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, New Orleans Hornets, San Antonio Spurs, Sports | No Comments
The Chicago Bulls are on a 3-game road winning streak, but they are still making life miserable for their fans in Chicago. The Bulls embarked on a 7-game road trip last week with an 18-20 record. They started off the trip with “winnable” games against the Warriors in Golden State and the Clippers in Los Angeles. The team knew that they needed to get a win or 2 right away because the back end of the trip was much more difficult with games against 5 teams with winning records.
So – after dropping the 1st 2 games against the Warriors and Clippers with lackluster performances, it looked like the Bulls might go winless on the trip. But then the improbable happened – the Bulls defeated the Suns in Phoenix, the Rockets in Houston and the Spurs in San Antonio. If the Bulls can win one more game on the road trip, they will match the total number of wins that the Bulls had on the road in the first 3 1/2 months of the NBA season – 4. Pretty incredible.
Now that they have Bulls fans believing again, I’m sure they’ll find a way to crap the bed against the Thunder in Oklahoma City and the Hornets in New Orleans to finish the road trip a “successful” 3-4.
The recent keys to success have been the dominating play of Derrick Rose and the consistent play of Luol Deng. In the last game before the road trip, Rose scored 37 points to lead the Bulls to a double-overtime win against the lowly Wizards. Since then, Rose has scored 19, 23, 32, 20 and 27 points respectively, and his average is now up to 19.6 points per game. Throw in a 5.9 assist average and a 3.7 rebound average, and you can see that Rose is getting better with each game. Rose has also limited himself to just a 2.6 turnover average on the current road trip, an excellent stat for a 2nd year player still learning the NBA game.
Luol Deng is the picture of consistency for the Bulls during the 2009-2010 NBA season. Deng is averaging 17.5 points per game and 7.9 rebounds per game. Since a November 19th loss at the Lakers in which Deng scored just 6 points, he has scored in double-digits in every game save for 3. Deng too has been limiting his turnovers and his renewed energy around the boards has Bulls fans salivating.
A final piece to the puzzle has been the consistent play of Joakim Noah. Noah is averaging 12.1 rebounds per game – a fabulous stat in and of itself. But the more telling stats are his minutes – 33:06 per game – and his scoring – 11.3 points per game. Noah has fouled out of only 1 game all season long so he is contributing crunch time and giving his coaches the ability to use him during all parts of the game.
With these 3 players proving their worth over the long NBA season so far, if I were one of the big free agents looking to make a move following the 2010 season, I would seriously consider the Bulls. Especially for a Chris Bosh or Amar’e Stoudemire, being able to play next to Noah on a nightly basis would elevate each player’s games to no limit. As long as President John Paxson and GM Gar Forman can get rid of Vinny Del Negro before the end of the season (or shortly thereafter) so that a free agent player will know that he has a legitimate NBA coach leading the way, I would think that the Bulls should be able to land one of the big free agents in the class of 2010…
NBA Playoff Teams All Set – Seeds Still To Be Determined
Sunday, April 12th, 2009 | Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, General, Houston Rockets, LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, New Orleans Hornets, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trailblazers, San Antonio Spurs, Sports, Utah Jazz | No Comments
We know know all of the 16 teams that have qualified for 2008-9 NBA post-season play. While some seeds have been established, there are still a few slots up for grabs.
In the Eastern Conference, the Cleveland Cavaliers – led by Lebron James - have locked up the #1 seed for the 1st time in franchise history. The Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic are still battling for the #2 seed, but the Celtics have a 2-game edge over the Magic. The Atlanta Hawks have locked up the 4th seed in the East. Miami and Philadelphia have each lost 6 of their last 10 games and are currently sitting in the 5th and 6th spots – they each have 3 games to play. The surging Chicago Bulls – winners of 7 of 10 – and the Detroit Pistons are tied for the 7th and 8th seeds right. That race will likely be decided when the Bulls visit Detroit on Monday night with the winner taking at least the 7th seed.
In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers – led by Kobe Bryant – have locked up the #1 seed for a 2nd consecutive year. The 2nd through 5th seeds are up for grabs among the Denver Nuggets (#2 seed), Houston Rockets (1 game behind Denver), Portland Trailblazers (1.5 games behind Denver) and San Antonio Spurs (1.5 games behind Denver). The 6th through 8th seeds are also up for grabs among the New Orleans Hornets and Dallas Mavericks (tied for 6th and 7th seeds) and the Utah Jazz (8th seed – 1 game behind Hornets and Mavericks). Looking to avoid a 1st round match-up with the Lakers, the Jazz play the Warriors and Clippers before ending the season against the Lakers – will they be able to bump out either of the Hornets or Mavs? Only time will tell.
The NBA playoffs will soon be here in full effect – get ready for some intense playoffs hoops action…
