Noah gets no joy from his 16 points in loss at Denver
Bulls rookie Joakim Noah failed to score a basket during his first 58 minutes of playing time this season.
Then he broke loose for a team-high 16 points on Tuesday at Denver, hitting 7 of 10 shots in the process.
But Noah was not impressed by his performance, which came in a 112-91 loss.
"I don't really care, to be honest with you," he said Wednesday at the Berto Center. "I just want to win basketball games. That's not what rocks my boat."
Coach Scott Skiles felt Noah helped himself earn more playing time.
The 6-foot-11 center played just eight minutes total in the first three games of the road trip. But the limited court time didn't make him angry, just as the 16-point game didn't make his day.
"Coach does whatever he feels is going to help us win ballgames, so I'm not upset," Noah said. "The only thing that's frustrating to me is losing. Nothing else.
"I feel like I was very satisfied with playing 10 minutes against Detroit and winning the basketball game. That was the most fun I've had so far. So it's not even a question of playing. I think that will come in the future."
As further evidence that he has a unique perspective on the game, Noah refused a suggestion that scoring 16 points could help his confidence.
"Confidence, when you're down by 30?" he asked. "I think that everybody on this team is confident. I don't think we have a problem with confidence. BG (Ben Gordon) said that today; sometimes we get discouraged. So there's a difference between discouragement and confidence."
Nice to see Knicks: A year ago, the Bulls were 3-9 after losing badly to a below-average Philadelphia team. Then, a day later, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Bulls beat New York to begin a streak of 12 wins in 13 games.
The Bulls are back at Madison Square Garden on Saturday with a 2-8 record and armed with the knowledge that things can change overnight.
"That's why me personally, I haven't been and I'm not now, in any sort of panic mode," Scott Skiles said. "I see everything that everybody else sees, but we've just got to step-by-step address them and have confidence in the guys that we've assembled that they're going to come out of it."
Bulls eye big lineup: The Bulls didn't have any update on the status of Luol Deng's sore back. He was hoping to return to the lineup by Saturday.
Scott Skiles, meanwhile, suggested another lineup change could be coming.
"Yeah, maybe. New York's awfully big," he said. "I don't know the sense I can make out of putting (Andres Nocioni) out there against Zach Randolph. But we'll see. I have something in my mind and we'll just see. It depends on Lu, too.
"Obviously on this trip, the lineup was too small. Noc has come to us even and stressed that he's more than willing to come off the bench. It did help us with some spacing issues. But along with the spacing, you're hoping you knock down some shots and it pays dividends."