Oh well, it had to end sometime. The Bulls vaunted 5-game winning streak was halted by one of its own victims, as the Milwaukee Bucks rebounded from last week's loss at the United Center to win Sunday night's game at home 99-92.
Like President Roosevelt's fireside chats, I was only able to access the game via radio. The Bulls radio crew does a real good job (even throwing in some Marcus Fizer jokes), but it doesn't replace television, unfortunately. Eddy Curry started the game red-hot, and had 12 points in the first quarter. At first I wondered why Eddy wasn't in the game more than 24 minutes after that output. But the Bucks scored 36 points that quarter, and I'm guessing coach Skiles had to wonder what the point was of having Eddy on the floor if he was just gonna be a matador for Bucks players going to the basket. I can't accurately(again, due to no Comcast) say that it was Eddy's fault the Bucks started out so well, but when stuff like this happens, its usually Eddy's fault :).
The star of the game was obviously Michael Redd, who continued the trend of opposing guards blazing their Bulls counterparts with a 39 point game, 1 short of his career high. He was a big part of that start by the Bucks, and had his team up by 18 in the second quarter. The Bulls chipped at the lead until finally tying it in the 4th, but it was Redd again who closed the game out.
Will Ben Gordon become the Bulls version of Redd? He certainly gave it his best effort, and has become the go-to guy for the Bulls down the stretch. And for me it isn't a scary thing anymore for the Bulls to be in a close game. Gordon has shown that he is willing, and able. But one problem with that is he has to be as clutch defensively as he is offensively. Else bigger guards like Redd will fire back whatever Gordon can dish out.
Lets hope that this 'streak' will be the first of many. The only reason it has significance thus far is that the Bulls have 9 wins total. And they'll need a few more 'streaks' to touch the holy grail of .500 basketball.