Halloween was in the air Saturday night at the United Center as Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls welcomed Ben Gordon and the Detroit Pistons to town.  The visitors were hungry for a win after dropping their first two by a combined three points.  Costumes were everywhere and the spirits were high as fans were anxiously awaiting their team to take the court.  After the injured Carlos Boozer welcomed the fans and thanked them for their support the game was underway.  Before you could say trick or treat though, Taj Gibson was in foul trouble and the Bulls found it nearly impossible to breathe around a Pistons player without getting whistled for a foul.  The Bulls allowed Detroit to sink nine of their ten free throws and trailed by three at the end of one.

Hopefully, the end of the first quarter would give the Bulls some time to refresh their legs and the refs to refresh their whistles.  The rest did the Pistons a lot of good as well.  Ben Gordon came out blazing much to the dismay of the hometown crowd.  The Pistons would extend their lead to ten within the first two minutes of the second quarter.  It seemed the Bulls might be in more trouble than they thought without the threat of another low post man.  The big lead was aided by Detroit’s shot selection and field goal percentage.  They sank nearly everything they shot, going a staggering twelve for seventeen from the field and twelve for thirteen from the free throw line.  Coach Tom Thibodeau credited Detroit’s success to them being “a tough team that’s hard to match up with.”  The crowd was getting restless as it seemed the Pistons’ lead was growing rapidly.  Halfway through the second the Bulls found themselves down by as much as twenty.  Halftime couldn’t come soon enough for Derrick Rose and company.  “There’s no way we should put ourselves in this position,” newly appointed captain Derrick Rose said.  The Pistons headed to the locker room after scoring thirty-nine points in the second and holding a nineteen point lead over Chicago.

A distraught Chicago team came out of the locker room hoping to chip away at a seemingly insurmountable lead.  After a back and forth field goal barrage to start, the Bulls weren’t making any headway as the lead would hover around sixteen for Detroit a majority of the third.  Anything the Bulls would do Detroit would wind up doing just as well, if not better.  As the quarter wound down though, so did Detroit’s energy.  The Bulls got as close as ten after with a minute to go in the third.  After a McGrady bucket and a Charlie Villanueva buzzer beater, Chicago still found themselves trailing by fifteen going into the final frame.  Fans already headed toward the exit and dreaded being out of contention by the time their big name free agent was even ready to play. 

The grim reaper was preparing the Bulls’ proverbial grave, but Derrick Rose decided to put on his Halloween costume a day early.  Luckily for Chicago, it was a Superman costume.  Rose kept the team calm as they clawed their way back to miraculously tie the game.  Detroit went frigid from the field scoring only twenty-eight second half points after putting up more than twice that in the first.  The slender James Johnson got in the mix by sacrificing his body diving for balls and crashing the boards.  Johnson may have had the shot of the game as he sunk a game-saving three from the corner.  Spoken like a true prophet Derrick Rose said, “I always thought we could win this game.”  Rose would add eight more points to his game-high thirty-nine points saying afterward, “If they leave me open I’m shooting.”  Joakim Noah added fifteen points and seventeen boards of his own to give the Bulls and new coach Tom Thibodeau their first win of the season.

The Bulls still have work to do until December in order to compensate the loss of double-double machine Carlos Boozer.  Joakim Noah isn’t worried about the state of the team, “What I like about this team is everybody’s here for the same reasons.”  Coach Thibodeau had plenty to say after his first win as a head coach.  “The start is not what we wanted.  The finish was.  The biggest thing is to be a forty-eight minute team.  We need to play harder, play smarter, and play better.” They will have another go at becoming a smarter and better forty-eight minute team Monday night as they welcome Brandon Roy and the Portland Trailblazers to the United Center.