Mrs. Illinois Has a Ball at Bulls Game

What do you do for an encore after you successfully shoot the puck at a Chicago Blackhawks game? Go to a Bulls game and present the game ball to the officials before the contest. Well, that’s what you do if you happen to be the newly crowned Mrs. Illinois, Lisa Sonnenberg.

Newly crowned Mrs. Illinois Lisa Sonnenberg takes time from her busy schedule to pose with Elliott Harris at Friday's Bulls game. This is what some of us like to think of as work.

Lisa went to the Hawks game and did the honors Thursday; a day later, she was resplendent in green — with tiara, of course — as she handed the ball over.

Speaking of turning the ball over, the Bulls had 15 turnovers but survived by holding the Detroit Pistons to 10 points in the second quarter and 10 again in the fourth for an 83-71 victory at the United Center.

“Part of it was their defense in the second quarter, but I think we contributed to that,” Pistons coach Lawrence Frank said. “The ball just wasn’t moving. That was our problem in the second period. In the fourth, they turned it up a notch and got a lot of offensive rebounding.”

The Pistons were 3-of-15 from the field in the final frame and were outrebounded 18-9 in the period. The Bulls had 10 offensive rebounds inthe quarter to compensate for 7-of-23 shooting. For the game, the Bulls outrebounded Detroit 53-37. Joakim Noah had 12 rebounds, including eight offensive.

Nothing offensive about photos and/or video of Lisa, as the following video shows (if things go as planned — and occasionally, they do, Lisa will be on next week’s “Sports & Torts” program with David Spada and Elliott Harris on talkzone.com on Thursday). Which means she will make an encore appearance on this site, probably on Wednesday:

And, of course, we have several more videos from the game — OK, the breaks during the timeouts that feature the Luvabulls — and the postgame.

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