Butler, Bulls battle - but can't catch Atlanta

The 12 days before Christmas will be brutal for the Bulls.

They will play three sets of back-to-back games, with second legs always on the road - at Atlanta, at Memphis and at Washington. Their depth and overall toughness will be put to the test.

Exam No. 1 was a failure. The Bulls lost to the Atlanta Hawks 93-86 on Monday at Philips Arena, a day after beating Miami.

The Bulls could have pulled even with the Hawks for third place in the Eastern Conference with a victory. Instead, Atlanta (17-7) won for the 10th time in 11 games.

"I thought our guys played hard. I thought the rebounding was really good," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters after the game. "You have to give them credit. They made big plays. I like the fact that they got a lead, we fought back, kept putting ourselves in position. So we've got to build on that."

The Bulls (15-9) trailed most of the night, but never by more than 10 points. They were within striking distance often and never had enough to make that extra push.

Jimmy Butler led the Bulls with 22 points, despite feeling under the weather. Taj Gibson finished with 15 points and 17 rebounds, while Pau Gasol had 13 points and 12 boards. Joakim Noah missed his fourth straight game because of a sprained right ankle.

Derrick Rose scored 14 points, but went 6-for-21 from the field, 0-for-7 from 3-point land, to go with 8 assists and 6 turnovers.

"I like the fact that he battled," Thibodeau said of Rose. "He tried to work through things. He didn't seem like he got into a rhythm.

"There's going to be rust. The only way he's going to come back is by playing and working. That's it. Even if he was 100 percent, not every game's going to be perfect. When it's not perfect, you've got to do something else to help us win."

Center Al Horford led the Hawks with 21 points, including a backbreaking jumper that made it 89-84 with 57 seconds left.

Ex-Bull Kyle Korver scored 12 points and hurt his former team in unusual ways. With the Bulls trailing by 4, Korver blocked Kirk Hinrich's 3-point attempt from the corner with 2:11 left.

Then in the final minute, with the Bulls down by 3, Butler nearly picked a Korver pass out of the air. Korver recovered to force a tie-up, then won the ensuing jump ball to seal the victory.

Thibodeau had plenty of nice things to say about Butler after the game.

"He was awesome. You can't say enough about him," Thibodeau said. "He's old school. Before the game, he's not feeling well, he said, 'Hey, don't cut my minutes. I'm going to run that out of me. Keep me in there.' I respect that. A guy wants to win, plays hard on every play, goes after people, makes tough plays, almost came up with that huge steal at the end. That's Jimmy. The guy's having an all-star season."

The Bulls allowed 93 points and the Hawks shot 43.4 percent from the field. After the game, Thibodeau bristled at questions about defensive lapses.

"I don't know how you're judging defense," he told reporters. "You guys seem to judge it a lot differently than I do."

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