Cavs Bounce Back, Destroy Bulls, 117-92

Coming off of a 104-95 loss to Miami and learning that their starting center, Zydrunas Ilguaskas, will be missing the next few weeks with a fractured bone in his left ankle, the Cavs (27-5) knew they had to come out of last night's game against Chicago (14-19) with a win.

It wasn't long until the Cavs built up a solid lead. They were up by 15 points, 32-17, after the first quarter and remained in cruise control to run away with an easy 117-92 victory.

With Ilguaskas out, Cleveland turned to other players to pick up some of the scoring and that came very easily. Anderson Varejao started in place of "Big Z" and finished with a career high 26 points; he also pulled down eight rebounds in 31 minutes of action. 

Varejao has shown he can carry starter's minutes and produce. In four starts this year, he has averaged 16.8 points and 8.5 rebounds. With a very tough schedule coming up for the month of January, the Cavs really need Varejao to continue to produce in Z's absence. 

Varejao wasn't the only one to pick up the slack as the Cavs had seven players score in double figures. Ben Wallace had his best offensive night of the year by scoring 13 points. Delonte West poured on 14, Mo Williams added 11, and both JJ and Sasha had 13 off the bench. 

All of this came on a night when Lebron didn't make his second shot until the 5:58 mark in the fourth quarter. He only took eight shots in the game, but he was 8-8 from the free throw line to finish with 16 points. He only had 10 points halfway through the fourth, but within 16 seconds he knocked down two three-pointers and grabbed a rebound to give him his first triple-double of the season, the 21st of his career.

James finished the game with 16 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. 

"For Lebron to take eight shots and for us to score 117 is just a tribute to Lebron being a special player," said Cavs head coach Mike Brown.

Unfortunately, Ilgauskas' injury came at the wrong time. The Cavs will play their toughest stretch of games over the next month and this team will really be put up to a test. They have a tough four-game, west coast road trip that starts off in Los Angeles against the Lakers (26-5) and finish in Utah (19-15). They travel to Orlando to take on the Magic (26-7) towards the end of the month. They also will host the Boston Celtics (29-5) and the New Orleans Hornets (20-9). 

"This month will show how good we are and to have our big man out, it's going to be tough," James said. "We have the west coast swing, we have Boston and New Orleans coming in. This was the month that we were looking forward to see how we stack up against these teams."

Former Cavalier guard Larry Hughes, one of the most disliked players in recent Cavs history, got his share of boos throughout the game. He finished with just nine points on a horrible 1-of-9 shooting. His shooting performance last night was nothing new to Cavs fans as they had to sit through two years of nights like this.

Ben Gordon led the Bulls with 22 points.

This victory is also Cleveland's 17th victory at home and they remain the only undefeated team at home this season.