[Box score] Let’s be thankful the Bulls and Pistons don’t play more often. Even with a season that to this point has been a major let down the Bulls still find it within themselves to push around the predominant Pistons for the third straight time this season and the sixth time in the last seven regular season meetings. For whatever reason they really put it together when it’s time to play the Pistons.

The game was pretty close throughout but the Bulls came through for the home crowd in the clutch (even though the “home crowd” seemed to to have a lot of red, white, and Piston’s blue injections). The Bulls outscored the Pistons 26-14 in the fourth while holding the Pistons to 27% shooting for the quarter. This is the second straight game the Pistons have been outplayed in the money quarter by supposedly inferior teams.

Chauncey Billups (27 pts, 5 ast) again kept the Pistons within striking distance. Chauncey had another big 15 point 3rd, but he didn’t get enough help from the other guys in blue. The Pistons struggled from the free throw line going 19/29 and were out rebounded 32-41. Dice did his thing on the glass with his 12 boards but wasn’t able to get it going on the other end only scoring 4 points. Detroit had trouble moving the ball with is evident by the uncharacteristically low 13 team assists. They again found themselves settling for long jumpers, taking 18 three-pointers, converting on 6 of them. Even when the Pistons did attempt to go inside credit the Bulls for playing tough interior defense. They also committed 14 turnovers with Rip again being the main culprit with 4.

Another disturbing trend that seemed to carry over from Friday night was Rasheed Wallace fading into the background. Wallace scored 4 points on 2/8 shooting (0/3 3ptrs). Sheed was clearly outplayed by Chicago’s Andres Nocioni (21 pts, 6 rbs) who was playing in place of the injured Luol Deng. There was a noticeable lack of fire in Wallace while Nocioni was deliberately challenging Rasheed’s defense. Rasheed finished with as many fouls as he had points.

One bright spot is that Jarvis Hayes seemed to get some of his touch back. Jarvis led the bench scoring with 12 points on 5/8 shooting in 18 minutes. Now if we can just get Maxiell and Stuckey to pick it up and reunite the “Zoo Crew”.



Ben Gordon came off the Bulls’ bench and led the game with 33 points while going a perfect 13/13 from the free throw line. The other Ben (you know the one) didn’t have staggering numbers (6 pts, 7 rbs) but he played well and gave the Bulls a couple of timely buckets. (BTW, does anyone know why Ben fades away when shooting uncontested jumpers?) He even found it himself to shit all over Jason Maxiell was a big “in your eyeball” dunk. I didn’t even know he could still get up like that. I fully expected the OH-BEAST to throw that back at Benny Paychecks, but Big Ben must have done some extra squat thrusts just in case the opportunity to posterize former proteges should arise.