If you haven't been watching Bulls games lately (and I don't blame you), then you're probably wondering why I'm going crazy over Acie Law not playing enough.  Here are the highlights of what Law did against the Mavericks...a performance that apparently only earned 10 minutes of playing time in a close game against the Cavs last night, while Pargo, Murray, and Hinrich combined for 95 minutes.  This doesn't even include his tremendous performance against the Grizzlies, but this video will do.  See for yourself.

If Deng is out for the season, Vinny will have no choice but to keep playing Law.  And hopefully he can keep stepping up the way he has in every game that he's been asked to thus far.  Of course if you ask Vinny, Pargo's a better option.  Gives me a headache to even think about this.

LeBron shows the Bulls what it means to play like a man.  These couple of plays are just nasty.

Good work, rook.  You hit a three and you fall asleep.  Guess what?  In the pros, when you hit a three, you're not special.  You still gotta go back and play some D.

This one was there for us.  It was there for us to steal.  It was there for the taking.  The Cavs were freakin' handing it to us.  Vinny wasn't having it.

The Cavs made only 31 buckets last night.  They shot 41.3% from the field.  Not low enough.  They had 17 turnovers.  Not high enough.

The Bulls shot 39.3% from the field.  In the NBA, it doesn't get any worse than that.  NOBODY shoots less than 40% from the field in a professional game.  That can only be described as PATHETIC.  Why did this happen?  Well, because Vinny Del Negro made a choice.  He made a choice to send out a bunch of chuckers whom he knows are absolutely incapable of shooting a high percentage. Seriously...let's look at the stats.  As they say, numbers don't lie.

Kirk Hinrich: 39% from the field on the season.  41% from the field in his career.  5-18 from the field last night.  0-7 from three last night.  Survey says?  Horrible shooter.  He played 41 minutes.

Flip Murray:  39% from the field on the season.  41% from the field in his career.  5-17 from the field last night.  2-7 from three last night (1 came with 2 seconds left in the 4th quarter when the game was completely over).  Survey says?  Horrible shooter.  He played 28 minutes.  Those tears aren't gonna help you shooting percentage, Flip.  It's more painful for us to watch than for you to keep missing.

Jannero Pargo:  35% from the field on the season.  39% from the field in his career.  3-9 from the field last night.  0-2 from three last night.  Survey says?  Truly one of the worst shooters in the league.  He played 26 minutes.

Amazingly, not one of those three guys is shooting over 40% on the season.  The three of them combine to average 40% from the field over their CAREERS.  They played a combined 95 minutes last night.

Honorable mention:  Brad Miller, shooting 42% on the season, went 1-7 from the field last night, and went 0-1 from three. Played 31 minutes.

Meanwhile, I ranted and ranted and ranted about how Acie Law absolutely has to play instead of Pargo.  He's even more effective than Hinrich.  But come on, Pargo?  There is absolutely nothing Pargo gives you over Acie Law.  There is literally and physically no advantage in playing Pargo over Law.  And don't give me that defense garbage.  Pargo is 5'11" at best, and Law is 6'3".  Law has averaged 20 points a game over the last two games.  He led 2 comebacks from being 25 points down against good teams.  This team would have been blown out by 40 points both games had he not stepped up.  And how is he rewarded?  He plays 10 minutes last night.  In his 10 minutes, he went 1-2 from the field.  Both shots were three-point attempts.  How?  Why?  Seriously.  Why sit Acie Law against the Cavs?  Wouldn't it just make sense to ride his hot streak?  Don't you want to milk it for all it's worth?  Especially against the Cavs who are basically guaranteed to beat you?  I mean seriously, what's the advantage of not playing him?  I want to know.  No, I need to know.  I demand that someone who is able ask Vinny why this happened?  To be honest, no reason to be good enough, but I still think Vinny should have to answer for his proposterous decision-making.  I'm so sick of ranting about the obviousness of the Pargo situation.  I feel like by explaining why Pargo needs to sit, I'm insulting Bulls fans everywhere.  Any 5 year old can watch the game and see that he brings nothing to the table.  Yet, Vinny Del Negro continues to favor him.

On top of that, Hakim Warrick only played 14 minutes.  Hakim Warrick, who is shooting 48% from the field on the season and is a career 50% shooter, only played 14 minutes.  The best thing that this guy does for you is provide offense. But no, Vinny sees no reason to utilize it.  Instead keep playing Brad Miller, who's not nearly as good a shooter as Warrick, for 31 minutes and Pargo ('nuff said) for 26 minutes.

Absolutely no excuse for playing Pargo anymore.  No freakin' excuse.  In fact, in my mind, in any rational human being's mind, Law has recently made a very strong case in playing more minutes than Pargo, Hinrich, and Murray combined.  Yet no, every one of those guys nearly tripled Law's minutes last night.  The numbers above speak for themselves.  Answers.  I NEED ANSWERS.

A few good things came out of this game:

1.  It's clear that Vinny must be fired.  Favoring Jannero Pargo, Flip Murray, and yes, even Kirk Hinrich over Acie Law cannot be rationalized.  There is no excuse.  See the past 3 games as to why.  But last night really tells the story.

2.  The play of Taj Gibson.  He's been very up and down recently, but yesterday he was up.  20 points on 9-14 from the field, with 13 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block.  He kept pace with LeBron's scoring for 3 quarters, and that's impressive, especially wnen you're battling plantar fasciitis.

3.  The play of James Johnson.  He's turning into somewhat of a heady player.  He played LeBron about as well as you can play the guy, and he's pretty effective in transition.  He can take the ball off the dribble if he has to, and he can also knock down the three (from certain spots).  That's exactly what you need in a good small forward.  Until about 3 games ago, we weren't really sure this guy could play on the NBA level.  So I guess if you have to find some silver lining in Deng getting hurt, it's Johnson getting the starting nod and some serious playing time with an opportunity to show what he's worth.  Last night he had 16 points on 6-11 shooting with 8 rebounds.

4.  The streak of giving up 100 points ended at 12.  That was the longest such streak in 21 years.

Those are about the only bright spots you can find.  Again, the free-throw disparity severely hurt the Bulls.  The Cavs made 9 more free throws and shot 6 more.  That was basically the difference in the game.  Then again, if Hinrich made at least 2 of his 7 three-pointers instead of bricking all of them, that also would have basically eliminated difference in score.  A team that goes 4-22 from three in a game will never win that game in the NBA.  7-22, which is still below a horrible 33% from three, would have won the game.  Three-point shooting does not get any worse than what the Bulls did last night.

The Bulls did manage to keep their turnovers in single digits while maximizing the Cavs' turnovers.  They also had 41 rebounds, which is a lot, but only because the Cavs shot 41% from the field.  The Cavs got 53 rebounds, which is a ton, in spite of Taj's performance, mostly because the Bulls shot even worse.  On a night when all they had to do to win was shoot not even as well as they had been shooting in the past week with all these injuries, they couldn't do it.  Unbelievably frustrating.

The Bulls are still only 2.5 back of Toronto and face Philadelphia tonight.  The losing streak absolutely must end now.  I expect the Bulls to come out hungry and thirsty for blood.  Their eyes should be wide because this is not a good Philadelphia team.  This is your chance to get back on track.  Unfortunately, Toronto plays New Jersey tonight, so no ground will be gained.  But a win will put the Bulls back on track and Toronto will start to get tight once the Bulls get a few wins, because when you're in the midst of a 10 game losing streak, all outsiders assume you're done and have no shot.  A few wins will start to make the Raptors nervous.  And who knows, maybe Derrick will play tonight.  Either way, a victory is in reach, Derrick or not.  Get 'er done.

Well the Bulls wore some green jerseys last night in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  Unfortunately, it really didn't bring them luck.  I do have to give the Bulls credit though, albeit minimal credit.  Two nights in a row, they went down by 25 points in the middle quarters.  Not good.  Two nights in a row, they fought their way back late in the game to make a game of it both nights.  That's especially hard to do on the second leg of a back-to-back after exerting so much energy trying to come back against Memphis.  But sure enough, the Bulls, after being down 25 in the 2nd quarter, came back in the 4th to make it a 7 point game with 5:30 left in the 4th quarter.

Interestingly enough, the difference in this game came down to the free-throw disparity.  There was a point in the game where Dallas had shot 28 free-throws, and the Bulls had only shot 4.  In the end, Dallas ended up shooting 33 free-throws, and the Bulls ended up shooting 23.  So it did not stay that incredibly uneven the entire game.  Dallas ended up sinking 25 of their freethrows, while the Bulls ended up sinking 17.  That's 8 points right there, and that's what cost the Bulls the game.  And I'll tell you why that was it.

The story of the night has to be the shooting.  In the first half, the Bulls were shooting something like 43% to the Mavericks' 61%.  In the end, the Bulls shot 52.4% from the field while the Mavericks shot 52.6% from the field.  Essentially identical shooting percentages.  In fact, the Bulls actually made 2 more field goals than the Mavs and attempted 5 more.  And that's why free-throws are key.  You can get more buckets, but the free-throw disparity can cancel that out in a heartbeat.

Equally amazing, the Bulls kept pace with the Mavericks on the glass.  The Mavs ended up with 37 rebounds to the Bulls 36.  The Bulls even had 2 more offensive rebounds than the Mavs...something I would have never ever predicted without Joakim Noah being around, or Taj Gibson being at 50% strength.  And that's with Haywood and Dampier taking turns crashing the boards.  I ripped into him last night, but I gotta give a lot of credit to Chris Richard, who had 9 rebounds and did a nice job banging down low.  This is the type of performance the Bulls want him to provide on a consistent basis.  Taj Gibson also had a nice bounce-back performance with 12 points, even though he's battling plantar fasciitis and was listed as questionable.

But how about Acie Law.  7-8 from the field for 22 points and 7-7 from the line.  I think he's earned him some minutes in Vinny's wacky rotation.  He's much more effective than Kirk Hinrich on the offensive end.  To me, it looks like Acie and Kirk should be splitting time playing alongside Derrick Rose.  It's time for Kirk's minutes to dwindle a bit and most of his minutes should mostly be used for defensive sequences.  Acie has proven that he can attack the basket, shoot, and get to the line very efficiently the past 2 games.  I've seen enough to be convinced, hopefully Vinny has as well.

The achilles' heel for the Bulls continues to be their three-point shooting.  They don't have a single good one who can hit it consistently.  Maybe Brad Miller, but come on.  The Mavericks seem like they're a team of three-point shooters who can hit them with a man in their face, with their eyes closed, from half-court, etc. (See Jose Juan Barrea).

The second worst thing about the Bulls?  Their coaching.  Amazingly, Acie Law didn't play in the second half until there were about 4 minutes left in the third quarter.  Vinny was letting Kirk Hinrich and Jannero Pargo run around and continue to dribble the ball into oblivion while providing absolutely nothing on offense.  Pargo's +/- last night was -12 and Hinrich's was -9.  Acie Law's was +10.  He gets it done, folks.  I'll tell you this much.  At least Pargo only played for 17 minutes, but somehow, Law only played for 21 when he was easily the most effective and efficient player on the team.  It's kind of mind-boggling.

Yet still, the Bulls were in a position to maybe win this game.  Yes, free-throws were the difference.  But besides free-throws, you have to look at the emergence of one player who prevented the Bulls from stealing this game.  The score was 90-98 with 6 minutes left in the game.  Apparently, that was Jose Juan Barrea's cue.  So began a barrage of 10 straight points from JJ Barrea that put a kibosh on the Bulls' comeback plans.  After making a 21 foot jumper to start his outburst, the Bulls got an and-1 from Brad Miller to make it 93-100 with 5:30 left and the ball.  This is where the game could have gotten interesting.  It didn't thanks to James Johnson continuing to be out of control.  He travelled.  Surprise surprise.  After a couple of threes and a 2 from Barrea, make it 93-108.  I blame mostly Hakim Warrick for Barrea's outburst.  On all those shots, he was coming off of a pick.  Acie Law and/or Kirk Hinrich were unable to fight through those picks set by the Dallas big men, and it was Warrick's job to switch, since he was guarding the guy who was picking every time.  He didn't switch once.  He saw the guy was open, but left him open to run back to his man.  How can you leave a shooter open like that?  Isn't that one of the first rules of basketball?  You switch on a pick to prevent a shooter from being wide open?  And if you do it the first time, fine.  It was a mistake.  But how do you do it again and again repeatedly.  Bottom line, it was over.

But tremendous comeback efforts on back to back nights by the Bulls.  Clearly, this team isn't going to quit.  And clearly, Acie Law needs to play more.  However, it's tough to look at the silver lining when you've lost 9 in a row and Toronto and Charlotte both won last night.  The Bulls now sit 2.5 game back of Toronto as the Bulls wait to face the Cavs on Friday night, while Toronto gets the Thunder and the Nets this weekend.  That's at least a 1-1 split for the Raptors.  But the Bulls get the 76ers on Saturday night, and boy will they be hungry for a win and will be looking to feast against a sub-.500 team.  Plus, it's likely that some players will be back at that point (I'm looking at you, Derrick).  I'm hopeful that by the end of Saturday night, the Bulls will still only be 2.5 games back with a win against the 76ers.  If the Raptors manage to beat the Thunder Friday night, they'll be 3.5 back, and that may be too large a deficit to overcome this late in the season.  But hope is all we have at this point.

Hakim Warrick made his presence felt with this rim-rattler.  He brought the thunder, but it wasn't enough to give the Bulls the win, thanks to Jannero Pargo's antics.