Chicago vs. Orlando: Bulls Make Magic Mere Muggles, 97-83

The Chicago Bulls extended their league-best winning streak to six games taking the magic out of the Orlando Magic, making them look like mere muggles in tonight's nationally televised game on ESPN. 

Once again rather than a one-man Derrick Rose show, the Bulls victory was characterized by balance across the team. That's not to say that the reigning MVP didn't have a good night, though. He nearly hit a triple-double, scoring 21 points and adding 10 assists, eight boards, two steals and a block. 

His shooting suffered though, as he was only 7-of-18 from the field and 0-8 in the second half. As the game wore on it increasingly appeared that the elbow was starting to bother him. 

The take home from this game is that Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver really got things going tonight. This offense is starting to show signs of what it can look like when it all comes together and frankly, it's potentially very dangerous. 

Boozer had arguably his best all around game of the season hitting on 9-of-19 attempts from the field, scoring 20 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. He also had played his best defense of the season. 

Now that's not to say he was great, but he was solid, which for Boozer is all you can hope for ask. Ryan Anderson was held in check, scoring only five points on 2-of-10 shooting. 

Luol Deng also topped the 20 mark, scoring 21 points and adding five assists and four boards while playing his normal stupendous defense. 

Kyle Korver added 18 points of his own off the bench, and it was really time to "give me some hot sauce" as Stacy King would have said. Korver hit 6-of-8 from the field and 5-of-7 from deep.

While Dwight Howard did his damage, scoring 28 points and grabbing 15 rebounds, Jason Richardson had 17 points. The Bulls shut down the rest of the Magic, though. 

While the Bulls won by 14 in the end, the Magic did cut the lead to three points, 80-77.  Then the Bulls pulled away, going on a 17-3 run, and extended the lead back to 17 points.

In all the Bulls assisted on 27 of their 38 field goals. raising their average to 23.8 assists per game. That's 1.5 more than last year. This is another indication of their improved ball movement and sharing.

For the Bulls to be able to do better in the postseason this is significant. With this style of offense, defenses are not going to be able to key on Rose and win. With the exception of three ugly quarters against Atlanta the Bulls are showing an offensive diversity that is just impressive. 

It's fluid. I mean that in the sense like it's flowing water, always finding the path of least resistance to the basket. Tonight they didn't have Richard Hamilton but Korver played the role, and did so quite well. 

It's worth mentioning that there weren't a whole lot of "oh no!" moments when Korver was on the defensive end. He for the most part handled himself adequately. When he was overmatched the help defense was enough to compensate. 

What he brought to the court in terms of shooting and coming off of screens was actually "Hamiltonian" at certain points. There was a beautiful tap-pass in the third quarter that simply would not have been there last year. There was also a drive to rim which drew an and-one foul. 

After tonight's game Korver is a plus-55 in just 136 minutes played. His plus-14.5 per 36 minutes is easily the best on the team. His defensive rating is down to 97 from 104 last year. His opponent PER is just 10.8 on the year. That's nearly four points better than last year.

His opponent points per play is .89, which is respectable. 

Now granted, those numbers are in part because of help defense, but it's clear that he's at least improved to the point where help defense is actually able to help. 

If Richard Hamilton ever comes back, the Bulls could put some really interesting small ball lineups with Rose at the point, Rip at the 2, Korver at the small forward and Deng at power forward. Deng is 6'9" and has put on muscle this year. He's actually played about 13 percent of his minutes this year at power forward. 

Having those four on the court at the same could really spread the court as they could all bury the three, which would space the court for Rose. Having Noah would be beneficial as he's such a good offensive rebounder.