CHICAGO -- Ty Lawson got the message. Denver coach George Karl told him to push it and thats what he did Monday night. Right at the Chicago Bulls. Lawson and the Nuggets were able to speed up the pace, move and share the ball, get to the rim and shoot 50 per cent in beating the Bulls 108-91. "Hes been telling me to be more aggressive. He says when Im aggressive things happen. Thats what Im going to try and do from now on for the rest of the season," Lawson said of the advice from Karl. "When the ball came off the rim we were running. Even when they scored, we were trying to run it right back down their throat," Lawson added. The Nuggets also outrebounded the Bulls -- the NBAs best team on the boards entering the game -- by 45-32, forced them into 16 turnovers and outscored Chicago 54-24 in the paint. Denver, tied with Oklahoma City as the leagues highest scoring team entering play Monday, got the final six points of the second quarter and then started the third on a 10-0 run to take a 64-52 lead, one it would eventually build to 16 later in the quarter. "Every game we lost teams have come out in the third quarter and hit us in the face," Lawson said, So he did something about it. Behind Lawsons nine points, the Nuggets outscored the Bulls 27-16 in the period to go up 81-68. The Bulls went nearly five minutes before hitting their first second-half field goal and were just 5 of 16 in the pivotal third quarter. "That was the best defensive quarter weve had in a long time," Karl said. "We kind of caught them in a flat mode. Thats probably the best we played in the second half in a long time. ... We kind of wore them down a little bit." Lawson matched his season with 27 points, Arron Afflalo had 22 and Al Harrington 17 for the Nuggets, scrapping for a playoff spot in the West. "If you let them get going they are a hard team to slow down," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "That was not our type of game. It was up and down, free and easy. ... We never got established defensively." C.J. Watson scored 17 points and John Lucas III, Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver added 14 points each for the Bulls. Chicago star Derrick Rose sat out his seventh straight game with a groin injury and the Bulls seemed to be out of sync most of the night, especially on defence. Chicago leads the NBA with 40 wins and has already clinched a playoff spot. The Bulls are 12-5 without the reigning MVP, but they havent played well in last three games without him -- twice needing rallies to beat Toronto and then being thoroughly outplayed by the Nuggets. "We miss him when we win. Come on, its Derrick Rose," Korver said. "It wasnt scoring points, though. Weve won a lot of games scoring 91 points or less. We just got to play better defence and we can do that with or without Derrick." Afflalo, back after being suspended one game for throwing an elbow at Jazz forward Gordon Haywards head on March 23, scored 11 first-quarter points. He had six of those and Harrington had a pair of 3-pointers in a 12-0 run. Chicago got the final six of the period for a two-point lead. Denver was up two at the half. NOTES: The Nuggets are 13-1 this season against Eastern Conference teams. ... JaVale McGee replaced Timofey Mozgov in Denvers starting lineup at centre. Coach George Karl saying his team needed to experiment. ... F Danilo Gallinari, Denvers scoring leader, missed his fourth straight game with a fractured left thumb. ... Bulls G Richard Hamilton, who has played in only 16 games this season, sat again with a shoulder injury. Michael Jordan Youth Jersey . -- NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says formal negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement with the players association havent started. Michael Jordan Black Jersey .C. -- The NFL has announced that Carolina Panthers backup defensive tackle Andre Neblett has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the regular season for violating the leagues policy on performance enhancing substances. http://www.shopth... . Mack spent the first four years of his career in Tampa Bay after signing as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He appeared in 58 games, including four starts, with the Buccaneers over that span and recorded 89 tackles with five interceptions. [url=http://www.shopthechicagobulls.com/Michael-Jordan-Jersey/]Michael Jordan Swingman Jersey . - Offensive lineman Joel Reinders and the Toronto Argonauts agreed to a contract on Tuesday, the CFL club announced. Michael Jordan Red Jersey . Chelsea remained comfortable for the rest of the match, although Wigan midfielder Jordi Gomez missed several chances in the second half. Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo was delighted with the Hazards impact. "Hazard was outstanding, produced a lot of quality and was always a threat," Di Matteo said.ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Nearly 12,000 Chicago Blackhawks fans were treated to a high-scoring charity hockey fix Friday night, while the real game was the posturing between the NHL and its locked-out players. Members of the Blackhawks 2010 Stanley Cup team skated against a squad made up of a grab bag of other NHL players, including Anaheims Bobby Ryan, Carolinas Jordan Staal and Minnesota defenceman Ryan Suter. For the record, the Blackhawks lost 16-15 in a shootout, but Chicago star Patrick Kane had five goals. But after the NHL cancelled games through November earlier Friday, much of the buzz at the Allstate Arena -- home of the AHLs Chicago Wolves -- focused on the work stoppage. The lockout has claimed 326-regular-season contests and the NHL maintains playing a full 82-game schedule is no longer possible after a league-imposed deadline for a deal with the NHLPA passed. Leading the conversation was NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, who met with players earlier in the day. Fehr and players say the NHLs primary negotiation tactic seems to be stall -- and follow a scripted timetable. "Nothing theyve done over the several past weeks has been very much of a surprise," Fehr said. "It looks like thats whats been done in the other disputes in the other sports. Its a shame, I think, and hopefully well finally get down to serious negotiations one of these days." Last week, the NHL offered a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenues, which exceeded $3 billion last season, but that proposal was rejected by the union. The players responded with three counteroffers, all of which would get the sides to a 50-50 deal, but the league quickly turned them down. Reaching a new deal potentially became even tougher Friday, because the NHL pulled off the table its most recent offer to the players. The NHL proposal was contingent on the league playing a full 82-game season, beginning on Nov. 2, which now wont happen. But simply, Fehr said the NHL is continues to posture, not talk. "All the deadlines that have been imposed have been NHL-imposed," he said. "We never saw a reason for a lockout to start with. A lockout ought to be treated the way the players treat a strike, which as an absolute last resort, not a bargaining tactic of first resort, which it was here -- and what it was in basketball and what it was in football.dddddddddddd "What is the articulated reason that (salary) concessions are being asked for, except that, Well, this is what happened in basketball?" he added. "Or the other one is, We want an opportunity for everybody to make a fair profit. "Whats a fair profit? Whos not making it? And if thats the issue, why is the proposal to lower the salaries on Toronto the same time you do it on Phoenix?" Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews sees the same pattern. "I saw it in the meeting room last week," Toews said. "Don and everyone worked very hard in coming up with those three different proposals and they (the NHL) didnt even have the courtesy to look at it for more than five minutes or even to discuss it. As has been proven over time, theyre just on a timeline and theyre waiting to see how much they can squeeze us for." Ryan flew in from California for the game -- which benefitted Ronald McDonald House Charities -- for an update from Fehr and talk to fellow players. "When you have to move deadline and dates back its a little bit of a Debbie Downer, I guess is the best way to put it," Ryan said. Ryan says hes quickly getting the sense of the tone of the talks. "I think its orchestrated and probably overly done," he said. "I think theres a lot of drama you can put away if both sides step up and get it done." Kane echoed the sentiment, saying he wasnt surprised by the league-imposed deadline and claim that an 82-game schedule was no longer possible "Any day they were doing to come out with cancellations," Kane said. "We knew it was coming." Fehr isnt sure, however, that a full 82 schedule is yet out of the picture if talks resume. "I dont know," he said. "All I can tell you is when a deal is reached, we hope that both sides make the maximum effort to but back together the largest number of games that are physically possible to do." Ryan just wants to see fans back in NHL arenas as soon as possible, considering the entire 2004-05 season was lost to a labour dispute. "The fans came back and you cant have a lockout twice in a fans memory," he said. "Some fans may not come back this time." ' ' '