Chicago Bulls Owe the City of Atlanta an Apology, Get Whipped 109-94

The Chicago Bulls didn't just lose badly to the Atlanta Hawks, 109-94 tonight; they got outplayed, outworked, out-hustled and out-muscled.

They turned it over. They shot horribly. They didn't rotate well at all. They let themselves get carved up all over the court, both in the paint and from deep. Atlanta shot 9-of-12 from three. It was bad. Really. Really. Bad. 

In fact, it was so bad it's not worthy of the energy it takes to write about it. It certainly wasn't worth the money the Atlanta fans paid for it. 

Derrick Rose had his worst game in forever, scoring only eight points and turning it over five times. 

Weirdly, the least abysmal of the starters was Carlos Boozer, who scored 12 points and had five boards in 21 minutes of play. 

The Bulls were playing their ninth game in 13 days, with seven of them coming on the road. It seemed a bit like they were halfway home before the game even started. They came out weak. Their effort was just not there tonight. They were tired. That's no excuse though. 

Normally you might be able to blame it on fatigue, but the Hawks were playing their ninth game in 12 days and their third night in a row, with four overtimes coming in the last two. If the Bulls were tired, they couldn't have been as tired as Atlanta.

It was just bad.

It was easily the Bulls' worst performance since their 97-85 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at home on March 28th. 

There were three silver linings to the huge stinking cloud of a game. First, Tom Thibodeau didn't try and win it by playing Luol Deng and Rose. Both played under 30 minutes for the game. 

Second, it gave us our first extended look at Jimmy Butler in a regular season game, and it was enough to validate he should be playing a lot more. He's an aggressive defensive player and a much better offensive player than was advertised. 

Butler had 12 points on three field goal attempts and six free throws, making all of his shots. 

Let the Butler do it! 

Third, Omer Asik really continues to develop and showed real offensive potential tonight. He had eight points and 13 boards, along with two steals in just 20-plus minutes. That's pretty stout. 

In the end, it's a just a loss. Hopefully the Bulls will come out peeved on Monday night and play more like themselves.