Coming into last night’s game, the Clipppers had won 9 straight games at home and were 14-7 in their last 21 games. But the Bulls were too much for the young team that was missing Eric Gordon as the Bulls won last night 106-88 avenging an earlier lost to the Clips’ at Home in December. You figured this would be a great game featuring two of the NBA’s future stars in Rose and Griffin and neither disappointed, but Rose had Griffin’s number last night. The Bulls are currently on a 6 game winning streak…
Teams continue to give Derrick Rose the green light to shoot when the Bulls play pick and roll basketball and he punished the Clippers from the perimeter and inside early and often in the game scoring 32 points with 11 assists. He made three 3-pointers early and finished the first quarter with 13 points. Rose also hit the clips with has become his patented Reverse lay up - even making Blake Griffin look dumbfounded after he split the defense. Deng also had a good showing with 26 points, as well as Booz with 16 points. The Bulls also played well on the boards out-rebounding the Clippers 41 to 30 and shot 51% from the field. You can tell the Clippers are not a great shooting team without Gordon who is out with an ankle injury.
Blake Griffin had 32 points and 13 Rebounds for the Clippers in a loss but didn’t disappoint on the highlights as he posterized Kyle Korver (see in the below post) and had a reverse jam over Taj…The kid is crazy but was held in check by the Bulls defense in the 2nd half, only scoring 7 points. Blake has to be trying to figure out his way out of the Clippers sooner or later…
The Bulls 34-14 start is the best they’ve had since their ‘97-98 campaign and puts them closer to that number one spot for the Eastern Conference. You gotta think that when Joakim Noah returns shortly after the All-Star break it will be open season for all teams with no low post prescence. We haven’t had a good chance to see Noah, Booz, and Rose on the floor together so when Noah gets back it will be interesting to see how the Bullls play…Up next on this west coast swing for the Bulls are the Golden State Warriors…
