Hughes, Gooden might be available to face Rockets
New Bulls Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Shannon Brown and Cedric Simmons were not able to practice Saturday because physical exams for all 11 players involved in Thursday's three-team trade were not yet submitted to the league office.
Instead, the four ex-Cavaliers watched film to try to learn the Bulls' system. Coach Jim Boylan is hopeful that Hughes and Gooden will be able to play today at Houston. Brown and Simmons are likely to stay inactive.
"It gets you familiar," Hughes said of the tutorial. "But once you get going up and down and you hear stuff, sometimes it registers, sometimes it doesn't. But the more times you're out there and hear stuff, it comes pretty quick."
Since the Cavs were familiar with most of the Bulls' plays, Hughes said he's trying to match the Bulls' terminology to the names Cleveland's coaches would use in the scouting reports.
Hughes and Gooden are also very familiar with today's opponent, since the Cavaliers lost to Houston on Feb. 7 and 19. If they play, this will be their third game against the Rockets in 17 days.
Big Ben meets Cavs: Ben Wallace didn't offer any nasty words about the Bulls when he arrived in Cleveland on Friday.
"I had fun in Chicago," he told Cleveland reporters. "Of course, we didn't win the way we wanted to win. The experience was good; the organization was good to me. I was doing things I wasn't doing in Detroit. It was a little bit of a struggle as far as playing basketball, not being able to play the way we were capable of playing. It was tough to get the team together."
Scoreboard needs rest: Here are a few more interesting notes about the Bulls' 135 points in Friday's win over Denver:
They just missed scoring the most points in the NBA this season. Phoenix piled up 137 against the Nuggets on Jan. 7.
This was the Bulls' first 130-point game since Feb. 18, 1997, and the most points they scored in a game since a 140-96 win over New Jersey on Jan. 4, 1992. The franchise record for points in a game is 155 against Phoenix on Dec. 4, 1990.
In contrast, tonight's opponent, Houston, has allowed fewer than 90 points in eight of the 11 games during its winning streak.
J.R. shot what? In the fourth quarter of Friday's shootout, Nuggets guard J.R. Smith knocked down his first 6 shots from 3-point range and 7 of his first 8 before missing the last 4 to go 7-for-12 from long range in the quarter. He finished with 43 points.
"I'm glad J.R. had a good game, but his shot selections in the last five minutes were fantasyland," Denver coach George Karl said. "He made some, but you're not going to win games doing that. It got kind of crazy there."