Boozer & Rose Lead Bulls Past Wizards 87-80

By Sean Mackey

The Bulls pulled off a win in what seemed to be a terrible game, beating the Wizards 87-80. Carlos Boozer lead the way with 30 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists. Derrick Rose tallied 25 points, 5 assists and 3 blocks. Former Bull, Kirk Hinrich lead the way for the Wizards with 19 points and 9 assists starting in place of injured rookie point guard, John Wall. New Wizards acquisition Rashard Lewis made a rather quiet debut for Washington, coming off the bench to score just 8 points.

I didn't get a chance to watch this one. I actually fell asleep for the entire duration of the game. When I woke up to watch it on League Pass replay, I saw that it was a NBATV game and was blacked out. I really think the league should do something about that. TNT, ESPN & ABC are all channels that are on every basic cable plan. NBATV is not. If it's a station owned by the NBA, you should be able to access it through League Pass, especially if you're paying $110.00 for a plan to watch games on the freakin' internet.

Anyways, after watching highlights and looking at the box score it looks like the Bulls played kinda loose the first half and then held Washington to just 30 points in the 2nd half. I'm really glad Boozer has been able to come back from that broken hand injury and play like the all-star caliber player the Bulls are paying him to be. Taj Gibson made his return after his concussion from the Clippers loss. He played only 31 seconds. I guess Thibs just figured they didn't really need to use him and to let him rest another day before they need him on Christmas against the Knicks. Kurt Thomas once again started in place of Taj and scored just 4 points but also tallied 7 rebounds and 2 blocks. It looks like Thomas will be starting against the Knicks.

The Bulls will be playing their first Christmas game this Saturday since 1997 when they beat the Miami Heat 90-80. Interestingly enough, the first Bulls game I ever watched was the 1994 Christmas game against the New York Knicks where they won 107-104 in overtime.

The Bulls take on the New York Knicks at 12:00 p.m. on ESPN this Saturday. This is a game that will really test how well the Bulls can play without Joakim Noah.

Go Bulls and Merry Christmas!