If someone had told me earlier in the season that — without Derrick Rose (sprained left wrist), Luol Deng (right calf strain) and Joakim Noah (left foot plantar fasciitis), not to mention the guys Chicago traded away – the Bulls would shoot over 52 percent and nearly pull off a 20-point comeback against the Mavericks in Dallas despite being forced into a starting lineup of Brad Miller, Taj Gibson, James Johnson, Kirk Hinrich and Jannero Pargo…

…well, first, I would have thought that person was messing with me. I mean, a starting lineup consisting of two rookies, an old man, and a dude who played in Russia last season?

But in all honesty, I’m kind of proud of these Bizarro Bulls. They could have called it a night when they were down 64-44 at the half, or when they fell behind 81-57 midway through the third quarter. They didn’t, though. They made the Mavs — winners of 14 of their last 15 games — work for it.

However, the fact that Acie Law was our leading scorer (22 points, 7-for-8 shooting) and Chris Richard led the team in rebounding (9) sort of tells the story. The near-comeback was part desire by the Bulls and part sleepwalking by the Mavericks, who switched out Jason Kidd for J.J. Barea in the fourth quarter.

Of course, Barea recovered enough to score 10 straight points after the Dallas lead had shrunk to 100-90, which was enough to help stave off a surprisingly feisty Chicago team. But in the end, all the fiestiness in the world couldn’t put a halt to the Bulls’ worst losing streak in years. The skid now stands at nine, by the way. Oh, and hey, the best team in the league is coming to the United Center on Friday night.

We could be looking at an imperfect 10 soon.

Without a healthy Joakim Noah, the Bulls have forsaken defense. Or maybe the defense has forsaken them. It’s hard to tell at this point. But just check out the points allowed over the last 12 games: 101, 110, 111, 100, 116, 105, 122, 132, 111, 108, 104, 113. Last night, the Mavericks were still shooting around 70 percent into the third quarter. And despite taking most of the fourth quarter off, Dallas still shot nearly 53 percent for the game.

I wonder if LeBron James is already thinking about notching his 29th career triple-double on Friday. I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Bulls (31-36) are now 2.5 games behind the Raptors (33-33), who beat the Atlanta Hawks in Toronto last night. The Raptors are sitting on the eighth and final Eastern Conferece playoff spot, and right now, that appears to be the only spot Chicago has a realistic shot at.

Remember when, just nine losses ago, it looked like the Bulls might challenge for the fifth seed?

All these injuries might prove catastrophic, not  just to the team’s playoff hopes, but to their offseason hopes as well. It’s an open secret that the Bulls have been lusting after free-agents-to-be Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. But it’ll be hard to make a strong pitch to those guys if their teams make the playoffs and the Bulls don’t. Plus, I read yesterday that Wade “plans to speak with several upcoming free agents, like LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Amare Stoudemire about their plans and encourage them to sign with Miami.”

Add that disturbing news to the recent rumors that the Knicks might be targetting Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer now wants to stay Utah…

…and let’s not forget the Milwaukee Bucks — who, thanks in part to the stellar play of John Salmons, have risen to fifth in the East — have the option to switch draft picks with the Bulls this year. Chicago’s pick is top 10 protected, but it seems most likely the Bulls will end up with the 11th pick while the Bucks will be in the high teens.

Management’s gambit might end up dooming the Bulls for years to come.

Of course, this is all speculation. Wade might want to come home. Bosh might want to play alongside an up-and-coming PG like Derrick Rose. Stoudemire might want a fresh start in a big media market like Chicago. The Jazz — who are kind of set at PF thanks to Paul Milsap — might not resign Boozer, and he’s previously mentioned the Windy City as a possible destination.

But it’s starting to feel a little hopeless.

The only antidote for this crap feeling is winning. Forget the playoffs. The Bulls need to get their big guns back and win some games. Period. Finish strong. Show what kind of team they can be next season, with or without another All-Star, and maybe someone will want to join in on a good situation.

The Bulls just have to make sure people realize it’s a good situation. Starting with themselves.

Update! Here’s something I forgot to mention. With about two minutes left in the game and the Bulls still trying for the rally, Kirk Hinrich stole the ball from Dirk Nowitzki. Before Hinrich could get away, Nowitzki grabbed at Kirk  and then gave him a little slap. The officials caught the grab but missed the slap, and it was the slap that got under Hinrich’s skin. Kirk then gave Dirk a little shove and earned himself a technical in the process.

Hinrich now ranks 10th in the league with eight technical fouls. I wonder why Kirk is feeling so fired up lately? I mean, I understand why he was frustrated by Nowitzki’s little karate chop, but I expected a little more composure coming off a one-game suspension for making contact with an official during a game in which he had just been ejected for committing two techs.

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All D-Rose could do was watch as the Bulls lost their eighth straight.

Imagine if a Bulls fan had used the Hot Tub Time Machine to travel from some time last October to right before last night’s tipoff against the Grizzlies in Memphis. They’d probably think they had traveled to some horrific alternate reality instead of through time.

After all, Chicago opened this season with a core group of Derrick Rose (out with a sprained wrist), Joakim Noah (out with plantar fasciitis), Luol Deng (out with a strained calf muscle), Kirk Hinrich (serving a one-game suspension), John Salmons (traded to Milwaukee) and Tyrus Thomas (traded to Charlotte).

In the absence of that core group — which includes the team’s current best four players – the Bizarro Bulls opened last night’s game with a starting lineup of Brad Miller, Taj Gibson, Flip Murray, Acie Law and Jannero Pargo. After giving it some serious thought, I came to conclusion that it was the worst lineup I’d seen since 1998-99 when Chicago finished the season with a starting lineup of Tony Kukoc, Ron Harper, Dickey Simpkins, Rusty LaRue and Cory Carr.

Honestly, I expected the Bulls to get blown out in the first quarter…so imagine my surprise when Law hit four of his first five shots (including a few wide open layups), Memphis couldn’t hold onto the ball (7 turnovers in the first 10 minutes) and Chicago took a 20-10 first quarter lead. It felt too good to be true.

And it was.

The Grizzlies went on a 17-0 run during the second quarter to establish a 55-44 halftime lead. That bulge grew to as many as 25 points in the third quarter before Memphis went back to sleep on the Bizarro Bulls…

…and the Bizarro Bulls nearly pulled off the upset.

They were aided and abetted by the Grizzlies, who opened the fourth quarter by missing 10 of their first 12 shots – which included two sweet blocks by James Johnson — and committing 5 turnovers. Chicago rampaged all the way back from that 25-point hole to within four points (94-90) with under three minutes to go in the game.

Then things came undone…thanks to Pargo. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder whether somebody in the Memphis front office had paid off Pargo to throw the game. Not only was his shooting horrific (4-for-15 from the field and 0-for-4 from downtown), but Jannero committed three of his co-game-high 5 turnovers in the final 2:27. That included turnovers on back-to-back possessions, which led to a hook shot and layup for Zach Randolph that pushed the Memphis lead to 98-90.

After Hasheem Thabeet hit a shot on the Grizzlies’ next possession to put Memphis ahead 100-90, the game was pretty much over. I just hope Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins did the right thing and gave Pargo the game ball. He was their MVP down the stretch.

In all, the Bizarro Bulls gave up 20 points off 19 turnovers. That’s way too many for a team that had basically no margin for error, even if the Grizzlies surrendered 25 points off 22 turnovers themselves.

Said coach Vinny Del Negro: ”We had too many turnovers. We cut it to four, we couldn’t convert. We had a couple stops. We didn’t value the possession of the basketball well enough and just turned it over too much. It’s frustrating because you don’t even get a shot at the basket. We had some costly turnovers and that was unfortunate. … I was pleased with the effort, but I was disappointed with the outcome.”

The outcome was Chicago’s eighth straight loss, which dropped them to 1.5 games behind the Toronto Raptors for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot. The only good news is that the Charlotte Bobcats lost to the Pacers in Indianapolis and the Miami Heat dropped a home game to the San Antonio Spurs. Every loss by a team competing for the East’s final four playoff spots is kind of like a win for the Bulls, right? Which is important, since the Bulls can’t win an actual game themselves.

Chicago’s Bizarro squad gave a strong showing, especially Murray (game-high 25 points), Hakim Warrick (22 points off the bench), and Law (season-high 18 points). I’m not sure what that means. If things were going a little better, I’d say their increased PT might lead to some development that would benefit the Bulls come playoff time. Only Chicago’s playoff hopes are looking worse by the day.

Let the “if the Bulls can only get healthy” refrain continue.

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ESPN’s Chris Broussard and Ric Bucher may not agree on whether Joakim Noah’s ongoing absence due to plantar fasciitis in his left foot is the costliest injury in the NBA, but the Bulls have now give up 100 or more points in 10 straight games. They’ve lost eight of those games, including the last seven in a row.

Chicago can’t stop anybody. Take last night, for example. Miami center Jermaine O’Neal scored a season-high 25 points by going 8-for-13 from the field and 9-for-11 from the line. Of his eight field goals, three were layups and two were dunks. And obviously he was pretty successful getting to the line.

The Bulls couldn’t stop him. They couldn’t even hope to contain him.

Welcome to the Bulls’ hell. Chicago is still one of the worst offensive teams in the league (27th in Offensive Efficiency), and now they’ve fallen out of the top 10 in Defensive Efficiency. Actually, they’re free falling in pretty much every category…the season standings, the playoff race, etc.

Can you feel the frustration?

The Chicago players sure can. The Bulls — who were playing without their medium-sized three of Noah, Derrick Rose (sprained left wrist) and Luol Deng (strained right calf muscle) — put up a surprisingly good fight all things considered. In fact, they were down only 10 points (87-77) with just under five minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Then things got whacky.

Brad Miller fouled Dywane Wade on a drive. For some bizarre reason, the officials decided it was a flagrant even though — somewhat ironically, somewhat painfully — it wasn’t even as bad as the foul that injured Rose in Friday night’s loss to the Magic. It really wasn’t. But Wade, as often happen, went down. And the officials took exception.

After that, Wade got lippy and Kirk Hinrich got a technical foul for arguing the call. Then Brad Miller got T’d up for trying to figure out what made his foul a flagrant. Then Hinrich went after an official like the dude had just kicked a kitten, which meant tech number two for Captain Kirk…and an automatic ejection.

The Heat hit all six foul shots and then — because they flagrant foul meant they retained possession of the ball — Wade knocked in a shot from the baseline. So in a span of about 20 seconds, the Bulls went from being down 87-77 to falling behind 95-77.

Game over.

Regarding his flagrant foul, Miller said: “I was just standing there with my damn arm up and he comes like he always does and I just don’t fall down. You get a flagrant for taking a hit, and that’s the joy of certain people against certain people. … They were trying to be tough guys, and we get to see them again.”

Replied Wade: “Honestly, I don’t want to talk about anybody’s frustrations [or] their season. We’ve had our ups and downs as well. I’m not going to talk about me getting calls or not getting calls. We’ve had that here so Brad can stop crying.”

Saucer of milk, table two, please.

To make matters worse – yes, believe it or not, they could get worse – replays sure made it look like Hinrich bumped referee Tom Washington on the arm while he was flapping his gums at referee Bennie Adams after the second technical. That could mean a one-game suspension

Said Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro: ”I’ll have to look at the film to make a better assessment of it. You can’t always worry about the referees, but sometimes you have to make your point. Bottom line is you have to do it on the court. You have to play and keep battling.”

Emotionally, it was hard watching the Bulls lose their seventh straight game and fall further out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. Really hard. But if I’m being intellectually honest, I have to admit it was impressive that Chicago was able to keep things close without their top three players. Minus an awful third quarter — during which they were outscored 29-18 — and that crazy sequence in the fourth, the Bulls hung tough.

It was also nice seeing James Johnson get some minutes and produce. The rookie scored a career-high 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting to go with 6 rebounds, 2 blocked shots and an assist. If Noah is going to miss time and the Bulls are going to struggle, Vinny really might as well develop JJ. That could be a key player investment…even if it doesn’t benefit the team until next season.

Meanwhile, I’m sure the Bulls will circle their March 25 game against the Heat on the calendar. But hopefully they’ll save a little focus for Tuesday’s game at Memphis.

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Another heart attack moment for Bulls fans.

Realistically, the Bulls didn’t have much of a chance to beat the Magic.

Orlando came into the game on a six-game winning streak, while Chicago stumbled into the Magic’s Kingdom on a season-worst five-game skid. The Bulls were without Joakim Noah (plantar fasciitis in his left foot) and Luol Deng (strained calf muscle), and both Brad Miller (thumb injury) and Taj Gibson (plantar fasciitis in both feet) were hurting. All the Bullies really had going for them was Derrick Rose.

Then they didn’t have Rose anymore.

With 55 seconds left in the first quarter, Rose drove to the hoop. And for the second time this season, Dwight Howard put Rose on the floor. Derrick stayed there for while, holding his left wrist. Eventually, he got to his feet and walked to the locker room. Rose did not return to the game.

Neither did the rest of the Bulls.

But I’ll get back to that. 

Rose had an X-ray on his injured wrist, and it initially revealed a sprain. Derrick will have an MRI done on the wrist today. There’s no word as of yet whether Rose will suit up against the Heat in Miami tonight.

Said Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro: “Derrick has a sprained wrist. I have no idea how bad it is. He’s going to get an MRI [Friday] to see how bad the damage is and see how he feels.”

Wonderful.

Regarding the collision, Howard said: “As a big man, you never try to hurt anybody when they come down the lane. Me and Derrick are cool. I think he’s a great player. A great person. Never wanted to see him get hurt. But I always tell him, if you come down the lane, always come off two feet. That way you’ll be on balance. You come off one all it takes is for somebody’s body to hit you and you’re going to fall. I hope he gets better. I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with him. But I never intended on hurting him. It’s just the way it happened.

“I think if you hit something that doesn’t move. you usually end up falling.”

Uh huh.

Added Magic coach Stan Van Gundy: “He’s going full speed, and he’s hitting basically an immovable object.”

Uh huh again.

Look, I’m not saying that Howard’s foul was especially dirty. It wasn’t Kevin McHale clotheslining Kurt Rambis or Bruce Bowen doing, well, pretty much anything. However, it’s worth noting that Dwight has a history of elbowing people like Samuel Dalembert. And Pau Gasol. And LeBron James. Heck, Howard once fractured the sinus of one of his own teammates…during the playoffs!

And of course, “Superman” took Rose down on a similar play back on February 10, bruising Derrick’s hip in the process. Rose left that game and did not return, and the Bulls got blown out with extreme prejudice.

Sound familiar?

In last night’s play, Rose was going in for a layup as Howard jumped into him, causing a body-to-body collision. Derrick was already in the air when Dwight went into him. That’s a dangerous play. Any time you hit somebody when they’re in the air, you risk hurting them. All that “immovable object” talk from Howard and Van Gundy rings a little hollow to me. The more I rewatch that play — and you can see it here — the more I see Howard jumping hard into an airborne player who had no chance to protect himself.

But maybe I’m a bit biased. Or maybe I’ve just seen the video one (or many) too many times.

What slim hope the Bulls had to compete left with Rose. Chicago was down by 11 points (26-15) when Derrick trudged to the locker room. By halftime, they were behind 65-33. The third and fourth quarters got played only because David Stern hasn’t instituted a slaughter rule yet. Maybe games like this will change his mind.

I don’t even know what to say about this game. Orlando outshot Chicago 55 percent to 39 and outrebounded them 46-29. Acie Law played 19 minutes and Joe Alexander logged 13. Stats, words, blah, blah, blah. It was an ugly, embarrassing, hopeless blowout. The Bulls had almost no chance without two of their top three players. Those chances were downgraded to “none” when they lost their best player.

Make it six losses in a row (by an average of 17 points each). And probably seven in a row tonight.

Said Del Negro: “We’re a different team than we were. From our injuries, to the trades, to everything involved. We’re without a lot of our guys. There’s no excuses. It is what it is. We’ve got to find a way to get healthy and weather the storm like I talked about, but there’s no question we are a battered bunch right now.”

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