Chicago Bulls 111 – Minnesota Timberwolves 100

I don’t think anyone really expected the Timberwolves to put up that much of a fight in tonight’s game. Ricky Rubio played a very well fought, hard game against the Bulls, but it just wasn’t enough to lift them up in the end.

The Bulls were on their way to blowing out the Timberwolves early on with a sixteen point lead at the end of the first quarter. That was until Derrick Rose went after a loose ball and Anthony Tolliver went down and landed right on his ankle. Rose laid on the floor for a second and then popped back up. I’m sure, like mine, everyone in Chicago’s heart stopped for a second. He played out the rest of the quarter and went to the locker room immediately at the sound of the buzzer.

The Bulls just fell apart while their MVP was in the locker room. He eventually came back out and went back in the game, but the Timberwolves were still hot from the show they were putting on. They finished off the quarter on a 20-2 run.

Ricky Rubio, as well as he played, just wasn’t enough to match up against the Bulls in the late of the game. Luol Deng and Derrick Rose were just piling on the points while the defense put the hurt on the Wolves. In the end, it was the Bulls pulling through and snagging the win in Minnesota.

What went right for the Bulls? They came out of the gates racing. They were up 16 by the end of the first, shooting 75% from the field. Rose alone had 14 points in the first half. He wound up with a season high 31 points and got 11 assists. He even managed to get 2 of the Bulls 9 blocked shots. Luol Deng woke up from his two game slump and showed everyone why he wants to be an All-Star this year. Scoring 21 points and 11 rebounds, he really carried the Bulls through a slump when it seemed like no one could find a way to score. Ronnie Brewer (filling in for Rip Hamilton again) scored 17 while Kyle Korver had 13 off the bench.

What went wrong for the Bulls? Fouls and turnovers. Lots of them. The Timberwolves shot 32 free throws opposed to the Bulls’ 21 and only turned the ball over 11 times to the Bulls’ 18. In my preview piece for this game I said, “Boozer has been playing pretty good so far this season. We just hope he doesn’t fizzle and have a mediocre game tonight after his big game last night.”. Well, guess what? Boozer fizzled. 7 points and 6 rebounds. Definitely not the performance we wanted to see after last night’s game. The other biggest down side is Derrick Rose and Luol Deng played for almost 42 minutes a piece and they have another game tomorrow night. Not to mention Rose’s ankle might be a tad tender.

What went right for the Timberwolves? Their Spanish Sensation Ricky Rubio was able to put the Timberwolves back into the game after it seemed like it was all but over early on. I’m surprised this guy isn’t a starter for the T-Wolves yet. He is clearly their best option at point and Luke Ridnour was able to rack up 22 points while playing at the shooting guard position. Rubio finished the game with a double double – 13 points and 12 assists. Kevin Love started off the game slow, being limited to no points and 1 rebound in the first quarter, but he came back (with his 10th consecutive double double) scoring 20 points and grabbing 13 boards.

What went wrong for the Timberwolves? They fell behind early on and had to play catch up the entire rest of the game. If they would have played with the same intensity early on that they did in the last 3 quarters, I think they maybe could have beat the Bulls. It also appeared that their bench guard, JJ Barea, might have gotten injured as he escorted himself to the locker room late in the fourth quarter after coming down on his ankle hard after a layup.

On to the next one: Tomorrow night, the Bulls play host to the Washington Wizards. Washington finally managed to get their first win of the season after beating Toronto. This is a team the Bulls should easily be able to beat, but we still don’t want to take them lightly. Rose and Deng both played a lot of minutes tonight, and we want to make sure we don’t let the Wizards capitalize on any sort of spark they received after their win tonight.