Home sweet Dome. Or next door at least. Hornets back in the Big Easy tonight to take on a Devin Brown’s new ball club. Game tips at 7 Central.

The Bulls are 22-22 on the season, 8-15 on the road. They’ve been looking good recently with a 4-game winning streak, all of those wins coming outside of Chi-town (Suns, Rockets, Spurs and Thunder). Wednesday’s game in OKC saw new All-Star Derrick Rose continue his stellar play by dropping 26 points and 7 assists.

Devin Brown has been with the Bulls for two games now and racked up two DNP-CD’s. Another former Hornets, Jannero Pargo, has been racking those up all season.

The Hornets and Bulls last met on December 23 in Chicago. Devin Brown led the Hornets in that losing effort with 22 points, while Tyrus Thomas (21 points, 9 rebounds) and Joakim Noah (17 points, 18 rebounds) came through with big games for the Bulls. Chicago was +17 on the boards.

Numbers:

Pace: Bulls 95.5 (12th), Hornets 94.3 (20th)
Offensive Efficiency: Bulls 99.0 (28th), Hornets 104.8 (15th)
Defensive Efficiency: Bulls 101.3 (7th), Hornets 105.6 (19th)

The Hornets are 25-20 on the season, 16-4 at home, coming off a 3-1 road trip. James Posey will miss tonight’s game with that strained Achilles he suffered against Golden State on Wednesday.

Linkage:

• Earlier on the blog: The Price of Fiscal Sanity
• TrueHoop: Rose leading charge for Bulls
• Lagniappe: Midseason report card and a Hornets-Pacers spin on the Super Bowl
  
• Rival bloggers: Blog a Bull | By The Horns (THN)

(Many thanks to Dariusz for today’s banner featuring Jannero Pargo. Be sure to check out more of Dariusz’s designs in our Wallpapers vault.)