By Brunson Bench Buddy B-Huge.

Last night the Bulls had a chance for their first three game winning streak in about a million years and to get to .500 in their second Brunsonian era. Their two wins since Christmas have been the talk of Chicago and even Michael Jordan was in attendance for this momentous game. The Bulls started out just fine taking a 17-point lead in the second quarter. Surely they would crush the Miami Heat, owners of a 2-13 road record, behind Jamal Crawford's newfound shooting mastery and Rick Brunson's rally-inducing towel-waves. Right? Right? Wrong. The Heat made a small run at the end of the quarter to cut the lead to 12 and it carried over into the second half. The Heat were in the lead by the end of the third and didn't look back.

Apparently the effects of Brunson's mentoring have once again taken hold in Crawford's game. Crawford was 3 for 16, including 1 for 8 from beyond the 3-point line. Why somebody shooting 19% gets to play 44 minutes is beyond me but then again I'm not a super-smart NBA coach. I only have a degree in Applied Mathematics specializing in Fluid Dynamics. Such feats of logic are out of my limited intellectual reach.

Since "the trade" Crawford has shot 57 for 174. That's 32.8%. Actually if you take away Crawford's two monster games after Christmas he's only shot 22.8%. Of course, injuries are killing the Bulls so the bulk of the offense has fallen upon Crawford's shoulders but perhaps the coach should be designing a slightly more balanced offense so that each game does not rest upon Crawford's streaky shooting hand. I'm not picking on Crawford, I'm just doing this for the benefit of all those Raptor fans who were dying to trade for him earlier this season.

This is a Rick Report so it is mandated we talk about Rick Brunson's contribution to this fiasco. Brunson had played 6 minutes in the first and early second quarters without any action of real note (2 assists, 1 rebound). Then with the Bulls up 17 Brunson re-entered the game with 1:58 left before halftime. Over that final 1:58 of the half the Heat went on a 7-2 run as mentioned above that put them back in the game. Brunson had a turnover and missed a lay-up in that 1:58. Brunson did not get back in the game again. It wasn't all his fault I'm sure as Chris Jefferies was on the floor at the same time. Perhaps Coach Skiles forgot there was still a whole half left to play and figured this was classic garbage time for the scrubs.