Kinged

Sometimes as a Bulls fan, you have to wonder when it's worth staying up late during their current West Coast swing.  Monday certainly wasn't one of those nights.  The Sacramento Kings welcomed their guests to Sleep Train Arena with a blowout 99-70 victory, ending their seven-game losing streak.

From the beginning, it was clear this wasn't going to be the Bulls' night.  They didn't shoot well and saw the Kings knock down shots at or just before the buzzer of the first two quarters.  The bottom fell out in the third quarter when Joakim Noah picked up his second technical following a questionable loose ball foul call in his direction.  He was so fired up he had to be forcibly removed from the playing area, refusing to take his ejection quietly.  The Bulls, down by 11 at that point, were outscored by 18 the rest of the way.

DeMarcus Cousins, back after missing six games with a sprained ankle, led the way to resume a career season.  He entered the contest averaging 22.6 points and impressed in this one with 25 points and 16 rebounds.  Counting Kevin Love and Anthony Davis, this is the third time in a week a big man from the West has been the ringleader in soundly beating the Bulls, which is either a bad coincidence or reason to be concerned with how this team is able to stick with those types of players.

Isaiah Thomas shot 7-of-9 to score 19 and Rudy Gay added 14.  However, the biggest supporting player for Sacramento was former college phenom Jimmer Fredette, who made the most of coming off the bench.  Although he played just under 11 minutes, he scored 11 points and made all five of his field-goal attempts.  He provided the burst of energy the Bulls could only dream of on this night.

Although Jimmy Butler led the Bulls with 17 points, he was only 4-of-11 from the field.  Taj Gibson shot the same in totaling 11, a number matched by Tony Snell.  Perhaps nothing personified a 28 percent shooting game than Kirk Hinrich missing all six attempts from behind the arc.  There was one play when literally nobody from either team was near him and he still fired a brick.  If that wasn't bad enough, the Bulls were outrebounded 53-30 and outscored 48-14 in points in the paint.

Perhaps the Bulls need some joint counseling with the Denver Broncos after not knowing what hit them in a similar vein to the Broncos getting blown out by the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl.  They played a team battling with the Lakers to stay out of the Pacific basement and perhaps underestimated Cousins' impact in his return.  Whatever it was, they're not going to win many games in which they get outhustled on the boards and allow their opponent to get easy looks in the highest percentage areas. 

They're a way better than they've showed these past two games and they know it.  Dropping consecutive games to last-place teams in the Pelicans and Kings could be attributed to the travel, the star big men they've faced or simply hitting a wall after an impressive January.  What we do know is Tom Thibodeau won't stand for what he's seen and is sure to get on his team's case for playing down to their competition, which has been a habit during his time as coach.

The Bulls will need to recover quickly as they have less than 24 hours before playing the Phoenix Suns.  That won't be easy as Goran Dragic was just named the Western Player of the Week.  Still, if they have a greater urgency to play up to their level, a good result might be in the works.  For their own sake, they better hope so.