Bulls Beat Up on Heat, Get Fiery

The Chicago Bulls were able to get back on track with a win over the lowly Miami Heat last night. The Bulls exploded for 126 points in a blowout win over the Heat on the road, just a day after losing badly to the Orlando Magic. The Miami game marks the end of a four-game road trip wherein the Bulls went 2-2 with wins over Philadelphia and Miami and losses to Atlanta and Orlando. Tonight the Bulls will be home resting and going through light practice. Tomorrow they will play Golden State at the United Center, so make sure to get your tickets to that one.

There’s also a lot of talk, especially in the Chicago sports talk radio world, about a tiff that took place between rookie Joakim Noah and veteran Ben Wallace during the Orlando game. While there were no visual fireworks in Miami, the two were seen exchanging heated words on Tuesday night. As you know, Noah was recently suspended by both his coaching staff and his teammates for two games. However, the two downplayed the incident and were mum to reporters until Noah went on the radio to deny that he was or is in a feud with Wallace.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Noah Back, But Bulls Lose to Magic

The Chicago Bulls lost big-time to the Orlando Magic last night. Rashard Lewis and Dwight Howard led the way for the Magic, who ran away from the Bulls in the third quarter of the game, putting it out of reach for almost the whole second half. Joe Smith led the Bulls in scoring with 13. Nobody had a good night on Chicago’s side. Even though Joakim Noah got to play and actually reached a double-double, he couldn’t help his team win, and that’s the main thing.

As you know Joakim Noah was involved in an altercation with a Bulls assistant coach over the weekend. Head coach Jim Boylan suspended him for a game and then the Bulls players voted- unanimously- to keep him suspended for another game. Getting reprimanded by your teammates has to sting a bit, but according to this article at the Chicago Sun Times, Noah is going to use it as a learning experience and not hold any grudges. That’s a very good thing. Noah is known for being a volatile personality, and an early characterization as a locker room killer could hurt his whole NBA career.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Chicago Bulls Set to Play the Orlando Magic Tonight

The Orlando Magic will host the Chicago Bulls tonight in Florida. The Magic are leading the Southeast Division with an overall record of 23-16, though they have just lost two in a row. The Bulls, as you probably know, will enter the game with a record of 14-20, in last place in the Central Division. The Magic are favored to win the game by about six points in most betting circles.

In order for Chicago to do well in this one, they are going to have to keep Dwight Howard from controlling the game. Howard has recently emerged as one of the elite centers in the game, averaging over 22 points, 15 rebounds per game. The Bulls managed to hold his points to 17 the last time these two teams met, but Howard ended up getting 22 rebounds and five blocks. Ben Wallace will probably get most of the defensive assignments on Howard. Joakim Noah still has a bad attitude, so he’s probably not going to get a face full of Howard tonight.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Drop in Power Rankings

There’s more unfortunate news for Bulls fans who follow the ESPN Power Rankings. This week the Bull have dropped to No. 23 in the NBA, down from their previous ranking last week. 19. The Bulls didn’t get any love from the Power Rankings for two reasons, judging from the commentary Marc Stein sites next to their ranking. The first reason seems to be that Noah and his confrontation with the assistant coach was distracting to the team. While that might be true, there have been plenty of dysfunctional player-coach relationships that have found a way to win.

The Bulls blog agrees with the second comment that Stein makes, that the Bulls should drop in the rankings because of their loss to New York at home. True, it was a frustrating loss, a meltdown at home versus a bad team. The Bulls also lost to Atlanta, another bad team, on the road over the weekend. There’s no reason that a team with the talented roster that the Bulls have should fall to teams like New York and Atlanta. Let’s hope that the Bulls can pull it together against a very good team, Orlando, tomorrow night.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Fantasy Players

How do the Bulls players rank against the other players in the NBA in terms of fantasy basketball value? If you check out the fantasy rankings at CBSsportsline.com you’ll have a better idea of where most experts would rank them. As you might have guessed, the Bulls aren’t doing so well when it comes to having great individual fantasy basketball players. This hasn’t been news for a while, though. While the Bulls might make a great team as a unit, they don’t have the star power that’s demanded of teams with high-ranking fantasy players. They distribute the ball well, so everybody gets in on the points every night.

The other factor that’s keeping the Bulls from having some higher ranked fantasy players is that they’re having an off year, and some of the players are not playing to their potential- Kirk Hinrich and Andres Nocioni especially. Let’s hope that the Bulls players can improve and that the team improves with them.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Looking Ahead in the Bulls’ Schedule

The Bulls had a forgettable fourth quarter in their latest game against the Knicks, so let’s try to look forward, shall we? The next week and a half will be plenty busy for our team, but if they can put together a string of wins, this team could be right back on track. The next game coming up is against the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night. The game is on the road, but at 14-22, the Sixers aren’t that good. The Bulls should win this one to start the rest of their busy schedule off on the right foot.

The other three games on their four-game road trip are against the Hawks, Magic and Heat. The Hawks and Heat aren’t doing very well this year, so it’s conceivable that the Bulls could win at least three out of four on this next road trip. Orlando, leading their division, will be a difficult task. The typical philosophy about road trips is that you play to split, but the Bulls are at the point where they need them to do more than that. They’ve got to get out of a hole, and the best way to do that is to play decently against some weak teams.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Come Up Short vs. Knicks

The Chicago Bulls could only score 12 points in the fourth quarter and thus watched as the New York Knicks strode past them to a 105-100 victory. Eddy Curry scored 29 points in a sweet all-around performance, leading the Knicks on their comeback run in the last period of play. The Bulls had held Curry to zero points last time the two teams played, but there was something very different this time. The Bulls could not give New York their eighth-straight loss. Chicago is now 13-20 on the year.

This was a game that the Bulls should have, could have, and needed to win to get back on course. You aren’t going to get many more games as easy as this one. The Bulls were playing the lowly Knicks, they were playing at home, and they were playing some of their best basketball this season coming into the game. What happened out there? Let’s hope that his is the exception, not the rule for the new-look Bulls, because these are the games that this team simply must take advantage of to try to get back into the thick of things in the Central standings.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Players Hard to Predict Fantasy-Wise

The Chicago Bulls have been through some very drastic changes, none more noticeable than their head coach. Boylan is the man now in Chi-Town, so things are looking different out on the floor. The pace is different, the strategy is different, and most importantly for fantasy basketball players, the starting roster and player stat totals are starting to change. In the world of the NBA, where there are games a couple of nights per week, drastic swings are more important to get ahead of than in football, where drastic swings are the norm. Who are the Bulls players you need to keep your eye on?

Ben Gordon: Amber Wilson, CBS’s lovely host of the Fantasy Hoops Week Planner, is telling us to play this guy in out fantasy leagues. Gordon is coming off the bench now, but it’s allowing him to play against 2nd unit guys and he’s lighting them up for almost 30 points per game.

Andres Nocioni: This guys is struggling to find the hoop lately, perhaps because of the changes in coaching. Maybe he’s having a bad year, but he needs to snap out of it soon. With a new sherif in town, his minutes could get cut.
To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Move Up in Power Rankings

Marc Stein of ESPN has been doing the Power Rankings for the NBA for ten weeks now, but the Bulls Blog has been hesitant to tell you about the Bulls’ spot in the rankings because, frankly, the news has not been very good. However, this week the Bulls have started to move back up the ladder. It will take a while for Chicago to get back up to the heights that they were last year at certain points, but progress is progress, and we should note it and celebrate it here. So here it is: the Bulls moved from the No. 21 spot to the No. 19 spot.

While you shouldn’t be satisfied with that position, there’s not much new coach Boylan can do to get this team back in shape. He’s made some changes- switching Gordon for Noah, most notably- and that’s really opened things up. The Bulls have rattled off some wins against easy teams, but they have yet to get a big win over a quality team- the true test that they are back to full strength. There is a long way to dig since this team got into quite a large hole right off the bat. But every win helps their strength, their “power” get back up to where it should be. The Bulls can continue to climb by taking care of business against the lowly Knicks on Tuesday night.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Bulls Lose Double OT Game to Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers are one of the hottest up-and-coming teams in the league right now, and they showed exactly why in their win last night over the Chicago Bulls. Before the United Center crowd, Brandon Roy of the Blazers put on quite a show, 25 points, 6 rebounds and 11 assists, despite being limited in mobility during long stretches of the game due to injury. The Bulls tried as they might, but couldn’t keep pace with Portland in the second overtime period, only scoring seven points to lose the game by a score of 115 to 109.

The game was on national TV, so there were plenty of people across the country who saw this game go down. It was a fun one to watch all the way to the end, but the Bulls just aren’t where they need to be right now. The game was billed as the old rising franchise versus the new rising franchise, and it appears that the new one won this round, though they had to use two overtimes to do it. While a loss is a loss, this game was entertaining the whole way through, and you have to think that the team is at least bonding through some tough, pressure situations.

To get Chicago Bulls tickets, go to StubHub.com.

 Page 2 of 3 « 1  2  3 »