Yup, I have been betting again. This time, I bet Kelly Dwyer that my Blazers would beat the nine-point spread against his beloved Bulls.

Loser writes an essay about how great the winner's team is. Kelly's got a way with words, and I was so looking forward to some fawning pro-Blazer poetry.

Then Brandon Roy picked that exact night to have a baby (which by the way, I'm told went well), Zach Randolph looked pretty selfish, and Portland lost by eleven.

I have made similar bets with bloggers a few times this season, and every friggin' time so far I'm the one who ends up writing. (That's OK, though, it's making me STRONGER. Like the mouthy kid in boot camp who has to do all the pushups. He gets bulky pectorals out of the deal, right? I'm just going to keep telling myself that.)

I was unsure what, exactly, to write about. Before the game had even started, the ever-helpful Dwyer had plied me with suggestions. For instance:

• Kirk Hinrich: "Jesus in high-tops"
• Luol Deng: "Genius or small forward? How's about both at once?"
• Ben Gordon: "Pretty smile."
• Andres Nocioni: "Injured, but he'll stab ya."

Kelly also threw in, at no extra charge, some constructive criticism of Portland's starting point guard:

"What rhymes with "Jarrett Jack?" Oh, yeah: "suck factory."

Man, there is nothing like a Blazer loss, and some taunting, to take the creative right out of my repertoire. This thing has been hanging over me all day.

I'm supposed to have something nice to day about Scott Skiles, the vein popping out his forehead, and the way he wields that 24-second shot clock against my team like a big weapon of basketball destruction?

But you know what? The Dinka saved me. Watch this video of Luol Deng.

Did you really watch it? I didn't think so. Seriously go see it. It's great.

Done now? Great. Then you know that he's a good guy, right? Deng made the tough transitions from a war-torn early years in Sudan, to rough treatment as a minority student in Egypt, to asylum in England where he was still an outsider until he found basketball, to a New Jersey boarding school, to now being one of the hardest workers on the Bulls. Find me one person who doesn't salute that.

This is a guy I'd like to have on my team. Especially when you watch this other video of Luol Deng, taking his long arms, his good decision making, and his strength right into the teeth of the Blazer defense for 38.

That's the deal with this Chicago team. When they're scoring points, they're pretty great.

Their defense is good, anchored in large part by Ben Wallace's commitment to defend smaller faster players on the perimeter. They hassle you full court -- a gamble that can sometimes leave a defense scrambling after a quick ball-handler or passer -- but the Bulls never get beat too badly, because Wallace is long, quick, strong, smart, and everywhere. There are so many plays that don't develop simply because the ball doesn't move like it's supposed to.

Then, if you're the Blazers, your offense can boil down to the ball in Dan Dickau's hands with four seconds left on the shot clock. Dickau has his moments, but let's be honest, that's a victory for Chicago.

The full-court pressure really seemed to trouble Jarrett Jack, too. It's rare to watch an NBA game where you're worried about the point guard's ability to get the ball across half court. That back-court pressure is usually kind of pro-forma, mainly to tire people out and burn shot clock. But I was worried at times. Jack looked flustered, and did cough it up, which was terrible, especially on a night when he should have been focused on proving he wasn't, as has been alleged, a "suck factory."

So you have to hand it to that Chicago defense.

The offense on the other hand, seems to be a case of "hope somebody gets hot for us, and I'm pretty sure it won't be our center." Kirk Hinrich is that guy a lot. Ben Gordon can be that guy. But last night, it was really Luol Deng who was that guy, and where Deng shall lead us, I am happy to follow. (Maybe one day he shall lead us to Portland, as part of some kind of deal for Zach Randolph.)

UPDATE: Ain't that bizarre. A few hours after this baby goes live, NBA.com launches a big ol' monster of a project using video, words, and everything else essenntially to prove the theory in my headline.