Chicago Bulls Defeat Toronto Raptors In A Much Needed Win

The Chicago Bulls have optimism after win versus Raptors.

The Chicago Bulls beat back the boo birds with an impressive victory over the second place (Eastern Conference) Toronto Raptors. A game that saw second-year player Doug McDermott score a career-high 30 points off of a blistering 13 of 17 shooting. Doug could be crafting an identity as a sort of John Havlicek 2.0.

Point guard Derrick Rose added 26 points and has been impressive of late aggressively driving to the basket and scoring off of an array of floaters and bank shots.

The Bulls’ bench produced in this game with a strong effort from seldom used back up center Christiano Felicio. He recorded 18 points, three rebounds and three assist in 14 minutes. One promising sight was Raptor center Jonas Valanciunas attempting to back Christiano down in the post with some pretty hard shoves….He got nowhere.

Any other Bulls big man would have gotten backed down.

Now will Christiano make us forget say Bullets legend Wes Unseld? Hardly, but it’s always good to have one of these guys on your team.

Christiano also showed nice cuts off the ball and passing, most notably a back-door bounce pass to Doug McDermott for a slam that brought the house down. Rose added six assist along with six from E’Twan Moore, four from Aaron Brooks and an impressive nine assists from Bulls center Pau Gasol who also had 18 points. Could it be that the vaunted pace and space offense is starting to take shape? Nah, probably not yet, but that was some pretty good ball movement.

Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh made an interesting point last week when he suggested that the Bulls young players are regressing.

If there is a regression in terms of development, then it could be attributed to either poor judgment during player selection or a toxic locker room.

When an NBA coach has lost standing amongst his players that is not necessarily the end of the world if, and this is a big if, there is solid veteran leadership.

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However, if there are internal struggles for leadership, then young players are generally left to figure out things on the fly.

Over the last week, there has been wide spread debate over the Bulls’ poor play, coaching, inability to land free agents and what could be an outdated and ineffective medical staff. The consensus seems to be that changes are needed, but what?

It is much too early to fire the coach who just replaced a coach that the players quit on in Tom Thibodeau.

At this time what is needed is a shakeup and I don’t mean trading Kirk Hinrich to the Hawks for a second-round pick. Some player or players on this team have to re-locate. Who? I’m pretty certain management and the players know.

Today’s NBA is about personnel. Golden State’s Steve Kerr is a nice coach but having a locker room filled with guys like Andre Iguodala, Leandro Barbosa, Shaun Livingston can’t hurt. And let’s not forget Draymond Green.

The Bulls don’t need a gut rehab but they do have to make the right moves and in the meantime we can all learn if rookie coach Fred Hoiberg is the second coming of Phil Jackson or Marc Trestman.

Next: Did Bulls Almost Trade Ta Gibson?

The Raptors game will be either a harbinger of what’s to come or just another exhibition from an inconsistent team going nowhere fast.

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