Okay, so the circus trip was one win over the Sacramento Kings from being a complete disaster. But the Bulls are finally home — where they will play 16 of their next 23 games — and facing a Pistons team even more ravaged by injury than they’ve been. Charlie Villanueva is questionable with a broken nose, Rip Hamilton is out with a bum ankle, Tayshaun Prince is out with a bad back, and our old pal Ben Gordan is iffy due to a sprained ankle.
Sure, the Bulls are minus one starter (Tyrus Thomas) and their sixth man (Kirk Hinrich), but the Pistons could be without their four best players. That should more than even things up, right?
Of course, I have a feeling BG will gut this one out. I bet he’d love to have one of those classic “see what you lost” revenge games. Yeah, he could do that the next time the Bulls play in Detroit, but I’m sure it would be much sweeter for him to do it in Chicago. And much more damaging to the psyche of Bulls fans, many of which are starting to seriously second-guess the decision to let Ben walk in the face of this five-game losing streak.
I hope the Bulls can come out a little angry tonight. They need to make up some of the ground they lost on the circus trip. And considering their next game is in Cleveland on Friday night, they need this one to avoid a possible (ugh) seven-game skid.
Absolutely, Matt – this game is about Noah, Deng and Rose coming out with pride and fire and focusing on getting better against teams they need to be able to beat.
As for Ben Gordon, the grass is always greener when you’re not winning games. But the Bulls franchise does not move forward with Gordon as a starter – both for style of play, and financial reasons. Letting him sign elsewhere was 100% the right decision.