Bulls in Black and White...and Gray

Here's the good and the bad and everything else from the Bulls 92-85 season opening victory over the Spurs. 

The White

-Captain Kirk outshined sixth man extraordinaire Manu Ginobili off the bench for the Bulls (14 points, 6 rebounds, 5-11 field goals)

-Joakim Noah picked up where he left off in last year's playoffs with his play (10 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks) 

-Luol "Don't Call Me Soft" Deng shocked the Windy City by playing 38 minutes of injury-free basketball. Enough said. 

-Without Ben Gordon, the Bulls saw a stark decline in uncontested jumpers given up and general pathetic help-side defense. 

The Black

-The Bulls learned they're going to have to live solely off of bread and water (Miller and Hinrich) when their starters need a rest. That was a terrible analogy. Can someone help me out and come up with a reason why one could represent bread and the other water? 

-Joakim Noah picked up where he left off last year and every year before that with his embarrassingly stupid antics (became the second Chicago athlete this year to utilize John Cena's "You Can't See Me" hand motion after a play. Oh yeah, his was after a putback lay-up.) 

-Despite pulling down six boards, rookie Taj Gibson played 16 minutes of unreassuring basketball--jacking up almost as many ill-advised shots as the Bulls management has regrets for drafting him over Dejuan Blair. 

-Without Ben Gordon, the Bulls had no clue what to do on big posessions. Luckily there weren't too many of those last night. 

The Gray

-Captain Kirk sported an unfortunate Euro-soccer faux-hawk and an Ivo arm sleeve. However, this may be a clever ploy to lure faithful Hinrich admirers (guilty as charged) into a state of depression, in order to jolt them (us) up to a state of euphoria later with his Rondo-scaring, dirty scruff look. Or he just wanted to show Chicago that Derrick Rose isn't the only sexy athlete in Chicago (you had my vote, Kirk).

-Tyrus Thomas actually played well. I'm not even saying he had a good stat line, but he looked like a decent ballplayer out there. Either Ty has matured enough to take his game seriously, or this was an unfortunate aberration that will result in undeserved confidence from both Ty himself and the management in his play. (Also, his three successful outside jumpers may have damaged the success of my recent invention: a collar that will zap Ty every time he strays more than 12 feet from the basket. Yes, I realize that means he won't be able to play defense on the other end.)