Duhon back, but Smith and Gordon hurting
The good news on the Bulls' injury front was brief: guard Chris Duhon, expected to be out 7-10 days with a bruised left knee, made it back in six.
Duhon he wasn't much of a factor in the 90-77 loss to Charlotte, scoring 3 points in 13 minutes.
Meanwhile, veteran forward Joe Smith played the opening 10 minutes before sitting out the rest of the night, and leading scorer Ben Gordon missed his second game with a sprained right wrist.
Since going 9-for-10 from the field at Miami on Jan. 16, Smith has hit just 13 of 37 shots (35 percent) and his playing time dwindled in recent games.
"Joe kind of stiffened up," said Bulls coach Jim Boylan. "At halftime, (assistant trainer) Marc Boff told me he couldn't go. So he iced down."
Gordon took the court a little more than an hour before the game to test his wrist, but he returned to the locker room a few minutes later with bad news for Boylan.
"It feels fine, but it's just when I overextend it, that's the thing that hurts the most," Gordon said. "Obviously, I want to follow through on my shot."
On Thursday afternoon, Gordon visited a hand specialist, who examined his MRI results and agreed there is no ligament damage or hairline fracture.
"It just looks like some inflammation in there and just looks like a sprain," he said. "It's not a fracture or anything. It feels better than it did yesterday. Hopefully it's just another couple of days and it will be completely healed."
Gray's time limited: A prerequisite to rookie Aaron Gray getting on the court seems to be a slow-moving center on the opposite side. The Bulls haven't seen many of those lately, and Gray has received nothing but brief garbage-time minutes in the past five games.
"I talked to Aaron about that today and told him not to get down about it," Jim Boylan said before the game. "It has nothing to do with the way he's playing or not playing. It's just matchup situations."
Gray said he plans to stay ready for when his time comes and didn't try to talk Boylan into giving him a chance against smaller lineups.
"I'm a rookie, so I try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible," Gray said with his usual smile.
Cats on the run: The Bobcats' chances of getting into the playoff race don't seem very good, thanks to a brutal schedule that has them playing 22 of 31 games on the road, beginning with Friday's contest.
Charlotte's arena will host both the ACC tournament and the NCAA's East regional finals in March.