After facing a 17 point deficit in the first quarter, the Bulls went on to win against the 76ers in Philadelphia. After looking absolutely pitiful in the first quarter, they came back and played hard in the second. While I have to admit I didn't get to watch the entire game, I did see the horrible first and the promising second.
Andres Nocioni had 7 rebounds and 26 points after starting again for the injured Luol Deng. While this wasn't the best team in the league, the Bulls have struggled against every team in the league so any type of decent scoring and rebounding by anyone is appreciated. Joe Smith also put up 19 points and 6 boards.
It is good to see the emergence of Nocioni and Smith during this period without Deng, but there are still major problems. The inability to finish a game is pretty disheartening. The fact that no matter the Bulls lead in the fourth, there still always stands a good chance that they might lose. Luckily in this one they held on with a big layup by Smith towards the end of the fourth after it looked like the 76ers were coming back.
One thing that really bothered me about this game was their inability to rebound and create second chances. Not only that, but the amount of second chances the 76ers got during the first quarter was frightening. I mean Samuel Dalembert had 20 rebounds in the game. And this was with foul trouble. there is no one on the Bulls currently capable of anything like that. Supposedly Ben Wallace is, but I haven't seen anything from him at all in the last two years that even resembles that. He will get some tough boards, but there are plenty points where he looks lazy.
Other than all of that, they got a win. Which is very important considering they can't count on any win no matter who they are playing. Joakim Noah had to sit last night for internal disciplinary reasons. Not sure what that means, but it gave Aaron Gray and Tyrus Thomas more playing time. Even though they are struggling, I still have optimism that they can turn it around. It just has to happen real soon to be able to do anything with this season.
