Game Thread #21: Bulls at. Toronto Raptors(UPDATED BELOW)

Man, that Heat game sucked. First off, maybe it was just a bad outing by Wade, but the Heat looked terrible. Riley or not they are not going far with that team. Gary Payton is done, they played Shandon Anderson and Gerald Fitch for a substantial time (granted, Jason Williams was hurt). Bulls make some free throws and open shots and they win. Blech. And, I still hate Alonzo Mourning.

Anyway, game's starting at 6CST, so not much Raptor preview. I really am looking forward to seeing Charlie Villenueva, who has gone from hated (for spurning the Illini) to loved (since the ESPN gasbags covering the draft labeled him a bust on draft night) pretty quickly in my book.

So....this should be a win, the Bulls have dominated the Raptors since sending Jalen Rose over there. Funny how that worked out.

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No injuries to report, but Ben Gordon didn't look 100% last night against Miami, so keep an eye on him.

Update: Just by the way the Bulls play, even when they start slow against poor teams you know they have the capacity to come back. The Bulls are not the kind of team to (nor have they achieved the status to) take a night off, so when they have the talent edge in a game I expect things to turn around sooner or later.

The Raptors are one of the few teams the Bulls can really dominate inside, and they succeeded with a 42-25 rebounding edge.But man, those turnovers. After the game Skiles shrugged it off to fatigue, as he mentioned turnover totals had steadily declined before tonight's 22 miscues. Kirk Hinrich had 8 himself, two of which was him stepping out of bounds when receiving a pass.

I'll buy Skiles' excuse for tonight, though the fatigue certainly didn't effect their shooting (65% eFG). Good to know the effort eventually overwhelmed the Raptors in the 2nd half, holding them to 38 points.

Tyson Chandler was a big part of that defensive effort, with 4 blocks and 2 steals in 18 minutes. Unfortunately, he left the game in the 4th quarter after spraining his knee upon landing on a floored Darius Songaila. While Tyson did come down awkwardly, it wasn't as if his knee buckled or anything, so hopefully the sprain was minor. Since he has been removed from the starting lineup, Tyson was beginning to look like his old self. And needless to say he'll be missed if he can't be there in Detroit on Friday.

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