Morning Box Score: Bulls Crush Kings Suck

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Dec 22, 2009 4:00PM

How? That's the question being asked this morning amongst fans of professional basketball in Chicago. If there are any left, that is. Last night, the Bulls cruised to a 35-point lead over the Sacramento Kings before it all came crumbling down and the Kings pulled off an improbable 102-98 victory that may put the traditional firing of the Bulls' coach on Christmas Eve back in play. A few minutes into the second half, the Bulls appeared to have the game in hand, up 79-44, just playing out the game en route to their third straight victory. Instead, Sacramento outscored the Bulls 58-19 the rest of the way to mount the largest NBA comeback in 13 years. Said Coach Vinny after the defeat - and after the Del Negro Firing Countdown was restarted - "We are not good enough to take a minute off, let alone a half...We stopped being aggressive, stopped going to the basket. You let teams back in games, they get their confidence up." Luol Deng had 26 points and Derrick Rose had 24. The Bulls are now 10-16 and yet the Eastern Conference is so atrocious, they're ninth overall in the conference. And now the Bulls try to collect themselves as they're in New York tonight to take on the Knicks (6:30 p.m., CSN).