Chicago Bulls Avoid Letdown against Milwaukee Bucks

Human nature sometimes gives a team that just got a huge win a disadvantage in the next game.

In other words, if this team gets a huge win, like the Chicago Bulls did Thursday over the Miami Heat, it will come out flat against a clearly-inferior team. After the first quarter of its game against the Milwaukee Bucks, it looked possible that they were experiencing a hangover effect.

They let the Bucks, who are only in the Eastern Conference playoff race because there are no good teams in that conference beyond the top five (possibly six if Carmelo Anthony pans out for the New York Knicks), gain a 25-21 lead at the end of the first quarter. Then the Bulls went into halftime in a tie with Milwaukee.

It invoked memories of their first game back from the All-Star break, when they let the lowly Toronto Raptors beat them 118-113.

But Chicago passed its next test toward being a championship-caliber team -- playing well consistently -- beating the Bucks 83-75.

Joakim Noah, playing in his third game since coming back from his thumb injury, was the star of the game. He picked up 17 rebounds and scored eight points.

Luol Deng was the Bulls' leading scorer, scoring 19 points. Derrick Rose contributed 17 points while Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver scored 13 and 11, respectively.

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute led the Bucks with 16 points in a losing effort.