Changes in attitude apparent to Bulls

Basically, all the Bulls did Friday night was barely squeak out a win over one of the league's worst road teams.

But every turnaround needs to start somewhere and the 103-99 victory over Milwaukee snapped the Bulls' three-game losing streak. It also began the Jim Boylan era with some positive feelings.

"It felt like there was a lot of excitement yesterday," Luol Deng said Saturday at the Berto Center. "Everybody was just playing together, playing with a lot of energy out there. We weren't thinking a lot, like we've been. We just let the game come to us."

The decision to bring Ben Gordon off the bench appeared to pay off, since the fourth-year guard scored 19 of his team-high 31 points in the fourth quarter. Boylan saw another reason for the Bulls' victory.

"I think it was not so much the changes that I made ... but the overall attitude of the team," he said. "They came with a lot of energy, focus and they played hard. There were several plays that I was kind of amazed.

"There was a rebound by Kirk Hinrich that I thought, 'Well, this is an easy 2 points for Milwaukee.' The next thing I know, Kirk was just wrestling the ball away and it was a huge play for us. Those kinds of things to me are what the big difference was from our team prior to last night."

Unpredictable Knicks: Coach Jim Boylan said he's not sure what lineup to expect from the Knicks this afternoon at Madison Square Garden. In a loss at Orlando on Wednesday, New York coach Isiah Thomas benched power forward Zach Randolph and kept center Eddy Curry in the starting lineup, then played Curry less than five minutes.

"I don't plan on coming off no bench the rest of the season," Randolph said in the New York Post. "I haven't played my way out of the lineup."

"I think at some point I'm going to have to be on the court for us to win the game," Curry said. "I'm going to have to play better, but that's how it has to be."

Head's up! One of the more memorable plays in Friday's win over Milwaukee came early in the fourth quarter when Bulls center Aaron Gray blindsided Bucks guard Royal Ivey with a solid screen near mid-court. Ivey crumpled to the floor, then got up and appeared to be yelling at his teammates for not giving him fair warning.

"I've been hit with a few of those in practice," Chris Duhon said following the game. "But I don't give him the satisfaction of falling down."

Bull horns: Last year on this date, the Bulls were 14-2 at home. This season, they're 6-7 at the United Center. ... Ben Gordon's last game as a non-starter prior to Friday was last season on Jan. 11 against New Jersey.