Sat, 12/05 Bulls vs Raptors

Sleepwalking Chicago Bulls embarrassed 110-78
Toronto Raptors score early, often and at will

The Bulls did a sleepwalk through a positively atrocious performance, succumbing meekly 110-78 to the Raptors before a crowd of 20,481 at the United Center that even booed sluggishly.

If LeBron James was watching, he probably started dancing again.

That the Bulls came out flat at home, where they previously had been 5-1, was bad enough. Add in the fact the Raptors were playing their fourth game in five nights and coming off an overtime victory and words like unacceptable come to mind.

"Definitely," Derrick Rose said when asked if the Bulls were embarrassed. "I feel bad, like when you have to go back to school on a Monday."

Instead, the Bulls will return to practice. And they need it.

"I'm very disappointed in the approach," coach Vinny Del Negro said.

Indeed, the Bulls allowed rookie DeMar DeRozan to dunk viciously along the baseline with little resistance and committed turnovers on three straight first-quarter possessions.

On one third-quarter possession, the Raptors grabbed four offensive rebounds and capped their effort with a Jose Calderon 3-pointer. Later in the quarter, Jarrett Jack tied his shoe while holding the ball and no Bull pressured him to try for a steal.

"We have to play with more hunger and effort," John Salmons said.

Chris Bosh led the Raptors with 25 points and 12 rebounds and didn't play the entire fourth quarter. In fact, he accomplished that in 22 minutes.

Salmons and Jannero Pargo each scored 13 points to lead the Bulls, who shot a season-worst 39 percent and didn't place a scorer in double figures until Pargo got there early in the fourth quarter. And this is a Raptors team that entered ranked 29th in points allowed.

Should there be pressure on Del Negro? These types of flat losses happen in the NBA, and the Bulls are indeed without Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas while Joakim Noah was ejected in the third.

But after spirited efforts earlier in the season, the Bulls have lost seven of eight and trailed by at least 19 in six of those seven losses. And players weren't even running back on defense by game's end.

"In a perfect world, of course," Del Negro said, when asked if he needed more effort. "But Jannero is out there limping. I have Lindsey (Hunter) in a bucket of ice trying to heal his foot. We have rookies trying to find their way. We don't have the bodies.

"You're going to have days like this. I love the challenge. I love the competition. It makes me sick to perform like that. But are you going to give up or go fight? I'm a fighter. I'm going to battle and do whatever I can to help. And the guys have to do the same."

The sad thing - wait a minute, make that one of the saddest things - about the Bulls' wire-to-wire blowout loss to Toronto on Saturday was that coach Vinny Del Negro rested his starters during the fourth quarter in Cleveland on Friday to save energy for the second leg of the back-to-back.

But the Bulls brought nothing to their home court, falling behind by 28 points three minutes into the second quarter and never making much of a dent in the deficit the rest of the way.

Considering the Raptors came into the game with an 8-13 record and giving up 114.5 points per game on the road this season, Saturday's 110-78 loss at the United Center should be regarded as a thorough embarrassment.

But the Bulls have been through this before. They've dropped five of their last six home games to Toronto, with 3 of those losses by at least 20 points.

Remember the home loss to end last season, which dropped the Bulls from the sixth playoff seed to the seventh? And the 101-71 thrashing on Nov. 10, 2007 is certainly a contender for the official "beginning of the end of the Scott Skiles' coaching era."

Following Saturday's loss, Del Negro wasn't ready to concede anything.