Gooden's 31 leads Bulls past Hawks

If there were any ghosts of Chicago Stadium, they've been gone for more than a decade.

Now the Bulls are dealing with frightful memories of fourth quarters past. Three times in the past 11 days, the Bulls blew leads of at least 9 points in the final quarter.

But facing a must-win game against Atlanta on Tuesday night, the Bulls never let a 12-point fourth-quarter lead disappear completely and hung on for a vital 103-94 victory at the United Center.

The Bulls (28-42) trail the eighth-place Hawks (30-40) by 2 games in the race for the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. A rematch awaits Friday in Atlanta.

"Don't ever count us out until the end of the season," said Bulls forward Drew Gooden, who piled up 31 points and 16 rebounds.

Those ghosts of late-game failures seemed to scare the Bulls on a few occasions after they began the fourth quarter with a 79-67 lead.

One rebound clearly bounced out of bounds off the leg of Atlanta's Josh Childress, but the referees awarded possession to the Hawks. A Marvin Williams jumper on the other end trimmed the Bulls' lead to 83-80.

A few minutes later, Williams had 2 close-range shots rejected by Joakim Noah and Luol Deng. But after corralling his own rebound for a second time, Williams fed Mike Bibby for a 3-pointer that made it 87-85 with 6:20 left.

After the Bulls stretched the lead back to 7, Atlanta crept back within 92-89 after Williams grabbed an offensive board and drew a foul on Noah. The replay had fans howling at what appeared to be a clean block from behind.

But the Bulls kept their poise and finally made their own breaks. Atlanta's Josh Smith appeared to have a breakaway dunk to close the gap to 1, but Deng caught up and stripped the ball, then saved it from going out of bounds.

At the other end, Deng missed a 13-foot jumper, caught his own rebound, and found Gooden alone under the basket for a lay-in. After a Hawks free throw made it 94-90, Ben Gordon buried a 3-pointer to give the Bulls some breathing room at 97-90 with 1:30 remaining.

"We needed to get this game," Hinrich said. "As a group, when they started to make their run, I think we just did a better job of keeping our composure and playing with poise. We made some plays tonight."

Coach Jim Boylan gave Hinrich most of the credit for keeping the Bulls on course.

"I thought Kirk did a great job of running the team," Boylan said. "To me, that was one of Kirk's most impressive leadership games I've seen him play since I've been here."

Gooden had 20 points and 10 rebounds by halftime. Deng was scoreless in the first half, then came alive with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks after intermission.

Boylan tried to prove all was forgiven with Andres Nocioni by sending the passionate forward onto the floor seven minutes into the fourth quarter. Nocioni was sent to the locker room for the second half of Saturday's loss to Indiana for arguing with Boylan on the bench after being removed from the game.

But Nocioni didn't have it Tuesday. He went scoreless in 13 minutes, picking up 3 fouls, plus a technical.