The Bulls tied their season high for wins after an impressive over the Golden State Warriors.
Probably most impressive is that the three wins have come at home, where they’ve struggled all season to put together a string of consistent performances.
The Bulls (26-16) led by as many as 26 and dominated the Warriors (26-16) inside, outrebounding them 56-37, outscoring them 30-6 in second chance points and 36-22 in points in the paint.
Hinrich led a dominant effort showing with a season-high 25 points, connecting on six of his seven three-point attempts. Nate Robinson contributed 22 off the bench against his former club and the starting frontline of Joakim Noah (14 pts, 16 rebs), Carlos Boozer (15, 13) and Jimmy Butler (16, 12) each finished with double-doubles.
It was the first time this season the Bulls have had three players finish with double-doubles and the first since last season Feb .16 vs. Boston.
“I thought readiness to play was very good,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “We caught some breaks. They missed some shots that they probably got good looks at. I thought our ball movement, particularly in the first half, was terrific. I thought the rebounding was great.
“I thought Kirk and Nate were terrific together,” he continued. “We were sort of forced into that because of who they had on the floor. They played extremely well together and played well off of each other. I thought we were searching Carlos out inside. I liked the shots that we got.
“Jo was terrific, offense, defense, rebounding and energy. Carlos – I thought his rebounding and just his presence inside, his screening and cutting, which led to fouls and got us to the free throw line. It got us established inside and opened some things up for us.”
The win moved the Bulls to 10-3 in the month of January and the attitude is now to continue with this current momentum rather than get content with their current progress.
“Things are going well for us,” Noah said. “That’s always good. There’s going to be a lot more battles, adversity. But we’re excited. We’re playing good basketball and if we keep our mindset on improvement than the sky is the limit.
The Warriors were able to make a run to cut the Bulls lead to 10 in the third quarter, but couldn’t keep Chicago off the boards or manufacture stops.
David Lee led Golden State with 23 points and Stephen Curry added 21.
“We’ve had a plenty good January and we just want to finish it out strong,” Boozer said. “I think we’re getting better and that’s what we want to continue to do. D Rose is still out, Luol [Deng] is still out. We’re doing it without big pieces of our team. It’s very impressive.
“Every team goes through ups and downs, peaks and valleys. Right now, we’re on the rise and we’re going to continue getting better,” he continued. “We don’t want to get too high, don’t want to get too low. We want to keep having the mark of trying to improve each day. Hopefully we’ll be playing our best basketball at the end of the season.”
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