Devin Harris scores 42 as Nets beat Bulls
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - The Bulls' playoff push slid backward one day after an impressive victory over Orlando.
Playing on the road at New Jersey on Wednesday night, the Bulls built a 9-point lead late in the third quarter before Nets guard Devin Harris turned the game around almost single-handedly.
The lightning-quick Harris scored 19 of his 42 points in the fourth quarter as New Jersey rallied for a 111-99 victory to pull even with the Bulls for ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
The Bulls (26-32) were ahead 78-69 with 1:38 left in the third quarter after a Kirk Hinrich basket.
Then while the Bulls missed 14 of their next 15 shots, Harris scored 14 points in a 24-4 run as New Jersey jumped in front 93-82 with 5:26 remaining. Most of his points came on either long jumpers or drives to the basket off screen-and-rolls.
John Salmons finally ended the cold spell with a 3-pointer, but the Bulls went on to miss three more long jumpers as the deficit ballooned to 16 points.
"We were doing stupid stuff the whole game and kind of shot ourselves in the foot," Bulls guard Ben Gordon said. "Stupid shots, stupid decisions, bad defense. We lost this one tonight, if you ask me.
"We shouldn't play like this, so it is definitely disappointing. This is a beatable team. We beat them twice already this season. The game was there. The game was there for us if we wanted it. We just didn't play the way we needed to."
The Bulls shot well from 3-point range, but none of their players ever really got a hot hand. Gordon led the Bulls with 17 points, followed by Salmons with 15 and Hinrich with 14.
Tyrus Thomas (13 points, 11 rebounds) hit 5 of 16 shots and missed 4 jumpers during a two-minute span early in the fourth. Tim Thomas, who played so well against Orlando, had 1 basket in 17 minutes.
"I thought some of (the shots) weren't great, but Tyrus wasn't the only one," coach Vinny Del Negro said. "There were a few guys, I thought. There were a few out-of-sync shots. We didn't go through our offense as much as we needed to."
The Bulls didn't lose much ground in the playoff race, since the two teams in front of them in the standings, Milwaukee and Detroit, both lost Wednesday. The Bulls and the Nets are a game behind the Bucks for the No. 8 seed.
Harris scored 39 points Monday against Philadelphia and hit a miracle half-court shot at the buzzer to win the game.
"I wanted to be aggressive and try and control the game as much as possible," Harris said. "The last two times we played this team, they made all the big plays in the fourth quarter. We definitely wanted to change things up."