Skiles clears air with Noah, then questions media
A day after suggesting Joakim Noah should keep quiet, Bulls coach Scott Skiles phoned the rookie forward and told him to go ahead and say whatever he wants.
Skiles delivered his free-speech edict to squelch the idea that he has any sort of problem with Noah.
"I don't understand that," Skiles said before Thursday's game. "That's the kind of thing that makes someone like me not really like most of you, to be honest with you. I said it in a very light-hearted manner, just taking a little jab at the rookie.
"So now I had to call Joakim this morning. I wanted to make it perfectly clear with him -- I want him to say whatever he wants to say. I love his personality. Really, one of the first times since I've been here I felt like I was treated unfairly, to be honest with you."
This all started late Tuesday night after the Bulls lost to the Los Angeles Clippers. After most of the other Bulls had left the locker room, Noah talked about how the team wasn't playing together.
When the quote was relayed to Skiles the next day at practice, he responded, "If I had just played my first game, I'd probably keep my mouth shut, to be honest with you."
Noah seemed dejected when he first heard what Skiles said. But following Thursday's win over Detroit, Noah worked hard to stay on the coach's good side.
"He can say what he wants, and I'll listen to what he has to say," Noah said. "I think it was blown out of context, too. I don't think I said anything that was trying to hurt the team or anything and I felt like the media tried to make it a division between me and Coach Skiles. As a rookie, you don't want to have too many divisions with your coach."
Rotation roulette: Ben Wallace seemed to be moving better on an injured left ankle. But the Bulls center sat out the final 14:31 against his former team, mostly because Joe Smith and Tyrus Thomas played so well.
"The guys did a great job going down the stretch," Wallace said. "In games like that when you don't need to put me out there, I'm all for that. I thought Tyrus came up big for us and Joe was making some shots. There was no need to mess with the rotation there."
Andres Nocioni, who played just 10 minutes Tuesday against the Clippers, was back to 16 minutes against Detroit, contributing 10 points and 7 rebounds. Cold-shooting Thabo Sefolosha didn't play at all against the Pistons.
No help from bench: In the second quarter, Kirk Hinrich saved a defensive rebound in front of the Pistons' bench but didn't get any help from the opposition. Richard Hamilton and Flip Murray both leaned out of the way, allowing Hinrich to fall backward over a chair.
When Hinrich struggled to get on his feet, Rasheed Wallace leaped off the Detroit bench and screamed to his teammates, "Trap, trap!" because the Bulls were playing four against five on offense. Hinrich stayed in the game following a Bulls timeout.