Fresh start, indeed
With newcomers Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes salivating from the bench, the Ben Wallace-less Bulls put on quite a show Friday night.
The Baby Bulls 2.0 -- Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah -- were revelations, and a rejuvenated Ben Gordon torched the Denver Nuggets for 37 points as the Bulls put together a hyperkinetic, crowd-pleasing 135-121 victory at the United Center.
"That was the new-look Chicago Bulls -- 135 points," coach Jim Boylan cracked. "We had the (free) hamburger (for 100 points) taken care of by the end of the third quarter, which is always good. It looked like the Pittsburgh Condors versus the Virginia Squires in the old ABA days."
A day after shipping Wallace and Joe Smith to Cleveland on Thursday in a three-team, 11-player deal, the Bulls looked like a team reborn, for one game at least.
The Bulls hadn't scored this much since Jan. 4, 1991, in a 140-96 thumping of the Nets.
The Bulls (22-32) also collected at least 30 points in every quarter for the first time in 11 years and scored at least 100 through three quarters for the first time since April 19, 2006.
Gordon led seven Bulls in double figures, and Kirk Hinrich had 14 assists and 2 turnovers.
"It was good for us to break out," Boylan said. "We went through a lot in the last 24 hours."
Gordon, now in competition for playing time and shots with the newly acquired Hughes, had one of his classic fourth quarters, scoring 16 in a shooting duel with mercurial Nuggets guard J.R. Smith, who dropped 23 of his career-high 43 in the fourth.
Gordon led the charge against a Denver run with four 3s in the fourth, which paled in comparison to Smith's head-scratching 7.
Thomas finished with 18 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals in just under 34 minutes, while Noah, making his fourth start, had 14 points and 10 boards in 38. They both dunked so many times you would've thought this was All-Star Saturday Night.
"I think that was good for everyone," Thomas said. "It was good to bring the new guys in on a good note. They had fun on the bench. Everybody had fun. Shoot, Jim had fun."
Boylan had nothing but praise for Thomas, who has had a rocky start to his NBA career.
"I thought that was probably the best game I've seen Tyrus play, all around," Boylan said.
The Bulls never trailed and shot 57.1 percent, finishing the first half on a 13-0 run to take a 68-55 lead. The Nuggets trailed by as many as 23 in the third but cut their deficit to as little as 4 as Smith went wild in the fourth.
Gordon kept matching him, though, and the Bulls eventually pulled away.
"It was like pickup," Gordon joked.
"Obviously there wasn't a lot of defense being played out there," Boylan said. "But there were some great individual performances."
Smith's fourth 3 of the quarter cut the Bulls' lead to 111-107 with 6:58 to go, but Gordon scored 10 points to spark a 14-3 run capped off by a Noah slam after a Gordon pass to make it 125-110 with 4:28 to go.
"We had some stretches where it got tight and guys needed to step up and make some plays and they did," Boylan said. "So that's really encouraging for everybody."