Chicago Bulls Complete Revenge Back to Back, Clobber Pacers 92-72

The Chicago Bulls had a back-to-back against two teams whom they had lost to earlier this season. Last night they beat the 76ers in Philadelphia. Tonight, they clobbered the Indiana Pacers at the United Center, 92-72. 

The game was a hard-fought game the first half with the Pacers tough, physical style setting the "pace" of the game. They were cutting off the driving lanes for Derrick Rose and daring the rest of the team to beat them. For a half, it worked as Indiana entered halftime up 43-42. 

In the third quarter, it was as though the Bulls collectively decided they'd about had enough of this..."stuff" and took over, and the game turned into a pummeling in the blink of an eye. They started hitting shots from the three. They started getting to the rim. They started sinking shots everywhere in between. 

On the other end, they just shut down the Pacers again and again. The Bulls only gave up five points over the last 7:38 of the third quarter, and they outscored them 33-13 in the third quarter. By the time the first quarter ended, the only thing in doubt was the final score. 

The only suspense was whether Jimmy Butler would come in and at what point we would be seeing the White Mamba. They did eventually make it in with 30.7 seconds left.

And when Scalabrine came in, we were greeted with something new—giant Scalabrine heads. He didn't disappoint the fans, scoring a field goal and grabbing a board in his half minute on the court which gave him an unreal stat line of 144 points and 72 rebounds per 36 minutes. 

Derrick Rose was absolutely kept in check by the Pacers defense in the first half as he had only two points and four assists at the break. In the third quarter, he had 11 points and five dimes and didn't play in the fourth. 

Luol Deng also had a nice game and was the leading scorer for the game. He had 18 points along with six boards and four dimes. 

The real heroes of the game though were the Bench Mob. Ronnie Brewer had 12 points and seven boards. Taj Gibson had 10 points and nine boards. John Lucas III had 13 points including a pivotal three which was a part of his nine points that kept the Bulls close in the first half. 

Kyle Korver had the "hot sauce" out hitting on both of his threes and adding a block that even Taj Gibson would have been proud of. 

All in all, it was a good team win with everyone contributing. The Bulls extended their lead over the Miami Heat to 2.5 games. 

The bad news is that Rip Hamilton had to leave early after banging his shoulder twice. It didn't look like  anything serious happened, but Rip looked to be in considerable pain. There was no update on the nature of the injury at the time of this writing.