Bulls shut down another opponent
It would be easy to categorize the latest Bulls win as one of those tired performances after coming home from a long road trip and playing back-to-back games.
In the last two weeks, though, all of the Bulls games have gone this way. Since giving up 118 points in a loss at Toronto after the all-star break, the Bulls have kept seven straight opponents below 90 points. In the last six games the Bulls have given up an average of 79.8 points.
The short-handed New Orleans Hornets forced another defensive struggle Monday at the United Center. The Bulls responded by keeping the visitors scoreless for the final 3:15 and finishing with an 8-0 run to pull out an 85-77 victory.
The Hornets were missing all-star point guard Chris Paul (concussion) and forward Trevor Ariza (abductor strain).
“Our defense is getting better every night,” center Joakim Noah said. “When we play good defense and rebound the ball and have low turnovers — geez, I sound like Thibs.”
Noah was referring to coach Tom Thibodeau, whose defensive philosophies have definitely taken hold. The Hornets shots just 36.3 percent from the field Monday.
“We’ve shown when we score high and the other team scores a lot of points, most of the time we’re going to lose that game,” Luol Deng said. “You’re just finding ways to win at this point in the season.”
Derrick Rose led the Bulls with 24 points and didn’t lament the lack of fastbreak opportunities during this stretch of grind-it-out contests.
“Not at all. As long as we’re winning, I don’t care,” Rose said. “We can win by 1, it doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to get wins.”
The Bulls (44-18) won their ninth straight home game, their longest streak since 1998, and improved to 27-4 overall at the United Center. With the Bulls coming off road wins in Orlando and Miami, every seat was full Monday.
“The city is excited about this team, and it should be,” Noah said. “This is a great building to play in. This is the best part about playing in Chicago, just being able to play in the United Center. It’s something I’ll never take for granted. Not a lot of arenas in the NBA have that kind of mystique.”
Rose finally broke a streak of 19 straight misses from 3-point range by connecting late in the third quarter. Carlos Boozer also had something of a breakout, scoring 19 point while hitting 8 of 14 shots.
Boozer hasn’t led the team in scoring since Feb. 5 at Golden State, and his overall numbers have dropped in the past month.
“We win. Who cares about stats?” Boozer said. “All I want to do is win. The rest of it will take care of itself.”
Thibodeau suggested Boozer’s lower scoring numbers were mostly about opportunity.
“We have to continue to search him out more,” Thibodeau said. “They’re digging down pretty good on him. We’ve still got to get the repost. We’ve got to give him the second look when he kicks out, so he can catch it closer to the basket.”
The Bulls led 75-65 early in the fourth quarter, but New Orleans (37-29) tied it at 77-77 with 3:15 left on a baseline drive and bank from guard Jarrett Jack (23 points).
On the next trip, Rose missed a driving attempt in heavy traffic and Noah followed in the rebound. After a Hornets miss, Luol Deng knocked down 2 free throws to make it a 4-point game with 2:15 left. The only other scoring came on 2 late foul shots by Rose.