Game Thread #25: Bulls vs Cleveland Cavaliers(UPDATE BELOW)

I'm scared of LeBron. I haven't heard either way if Luol Deng is playing tonight, but safe to say even if he plays, he (and Gordon similarly) will be slowed by the injury.

Then again, Nocioni seems to do a nice job getting under LeBron's skin, and King James has historically shot poorly at the United Center.

And if you need something else to pin your hopes to, My Man Sam points out that the Cavs are last in the league in 3pt% allowed. The Bulls are 2nd in the NBA in 3point shooting.

Blogging with the Enemy: Cavalier Attitude

Oh yeah, gametime is 7CST (instead of the usual 7:30) on TNT(!). First nationally-televised game in a year where the Bulls have multiple such games for the first time in a while. I always get the shakes when thinking about nationally televised Bulls games, since it brings me back to when the Bulls-Wiz(M. Jeff version) contests would stink up televisions across the country. Hopefully they give a good showing so Charles and Kenny can say one nice thing about the Bulls before focusing the rest of their time on LeBron...or Mark Cuban or something.

I'll be at the UC tonight so may not have a recap until tomorrow. Until then leave comments below, this is an open thread.

UPDATE: First of all, screw this guy. Seriously. He's close to joining the ranks of Alonzo Mourning and Larry Brown in the jackass pantheon. Some role players ride the coattails of superstars, he goes beyond that and resides right up the superstar's rectum to refracted glory. Clown.

Enough projected anger at Damon Jones, it's about the Bulls after all. As the Bulls were up 8 points in the 3rd quarter, I grouped Cleveland with New Jersey and Miami as Eastern Conference teams I was not impressed with at all. And now Cleveland joins those teams in another way: teams the Bulls lost to.

Luol Deng did wind up playing, and despite the fact that the LeBron had 37 points, they didn't seem to do THAT bad of a job on him(if that makes sense). More worrisome were the 11 offensive boards by the Cavs, the 15 Bull turnovers, and of course another game where there's a huge free-throw-attempt differential(41-10!). This isn't the refs fault folks. The Bulls foul. a lot.

Just a 4th quarter collapse, I don't have much more to say. Chandler and Sweetney gave next to nothing, yet for some reason they kept going to Sweetney in the 4th (when they weren't turning the ball over) while they had 3 guards and Songaila ready to shoot from the outside. Why they went away from creating open shots for their jump shooters I don't know.

If you have the restraint(I'd understand if you didn't), save your 'what does it all mean' comments for tomorrow, I'll have another post.

Recap | BoxScore | GameFlow