Bulls weather Thunder in OKC

The Bulls followed a four-game win streak with losses to the Pistons and NY before Monday’s 105-102 home loss to Brooklyn. None of the signs have been particularly good this season other than flashes of brilliance for Chicago, but hopefully the Christmas Day game will be a step towards them becoming a functional group again. Chicago made sure things didn’t get to that point in the Christmas rematch in Oklahoma City.

In a game with several skirmishes, the Bulls outrebounded the NBA’s No.;2 rebounding team 53-48. The line-up of Durant, Westbrook, forward Serge Ibaka, Kanter and guard Anthony Morrow quickly closed the gap to 12 with 6min 59sec left. “And they got us”. “We were making plays for each other”. “We penetrate and we looked to pass tonight”.

Derrick Rose added 19 points, and Gibson had 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Durant led all scorers with 29 points on 11-for-21 shooting with nine rebounds and seven assists, and Westbrook added 26 points on 9-for-23 shooting with eight assists, seven rebounds and six steals. The loss also snapped a three game win streak for the Thunder.

“That’s the formula. We have to start looking at that”, Durant said. “The slower we play the easier it is for teams to guard us”.

The Chicago Bulls are a team in the process of changing, and it appears like they will be quite different at the end of the year than they are right now. They may have dropped two of the last three to Chicago, but right now the Thunder are a more balanced team and favored to win. He finished with six points, four rebounds and a pair of assists in 12 minutes.

Smith scored 14 points in the first game of his second stint with the lowly 76ers, who beat the Suns, 111-104, late Saturday at Phoenix for just their second win of the season.

I’m not going to call that a Christmas miracle, but what an fantastic rainbow.

The Bulls led the entire way in a building where they had not won since 2010. The Celtics opened an 88-78 lead on Turner’s driving basket with 6:11 to play but the Knicks cut it to 90-85 before Thomas had consecutive driving baskets to push the lead back to nine. LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers leads the Eastern Conference with 357,937 votes.

The Bulls took full advantage of a rare three-day break between games. Houston used an 8-2 run to take a 78-71 lead with about five minutes left. Butler hit a 35-foot 3-pointer at the end of the first quarter…. Kawhi Leonard had 20 points to lead San Antonio. Pau Gasol tops in rebounds with 10.8 and in blocks with 2.2 per game. These types of games can be fun while infuriating at the same time, because we know that if the Thunder had put a little bit more focus and energy on their interior game, namely defensive rebounding and post defense, this game would not have been in jeopardy even mid-way through the 4th quarter.