Bulls end 8-game road skid, beat Pistons
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP)—When the Chicago Bulls won in Washington on Nov. 14,they were hoping they’d get their next road victory before Thanksgiving.
Instead, it took until New Year’s Eve.
“I wasn’t thinking about the streak—I just wanted to get a win,” Bullscoach Vinny Del Negro said. “This was just a nice, solid win for us.”
Derrick Rose(notes) scored 22 points, and Joakim Noah(notes) added 15 points and 21rebounds to help the Bulls end a six-week road drought with a 98-87 victory overDetroit.
Detroit Pistons guard Rodney S… AP – Dec 31, 6:27 pm EST ![]()
Chicago Bulls forward Tyrus Th… AP – Dec 31, 6:20 pm EST ![]()
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Ro… AP – Dec 31, 6:13 pm EST ![]()
Detroit Pistons forward Jonas … AP – Dec 31, 6:08 pm EST ![]()
Chicago Bulls coach Vinny Del … AP – Dec 31, 6:00 pm EST ![]()
Chicago Bulls center Joakim No… AP – Dec 31, 4:40 pm EST ![]()
Detroit Pistons center Ben Wal… AP – Dec 31, 4:38 pm EST ![]()
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Ro… AP – Dec 31, 4:36 pm EST ![]()
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“This feels good,” Noah said after Chicago won its third in a row overall.“I think we are just playing better basketball right now for whatever reason.”
Rose finished with a point more than Ben Gordon(notes), who joined Detroit fromChicago this summer.
“Ben’s role is to score the ball, and I’m playing point guard, so no onesaid anything about this being me against him,” Rose said. “I’ll do whateverit takes for us to win, and today that took being aggressive.”
Chicago had lost eight straight on the road, but never trailed while handingDetroit its ninth straight loss. The Pistons (11-21) are 10 games under .500 forthe first time since the 2000-01 season, but coach John Kuester was stillencouraged.
“I saw a number of positive things out there,” he said. “I’m sure peopleare going to hear that and say, ‘You must be kidding,’ but we did some goodthings. We lost Rip (Hamilton), Tayshaun (Prince) and Ben Gordon for extendedperiods of time, and there’s no chance that they were going to come right backin midseason form.”
Tyrus Thomas(notes) added 19 points for Chicago (13-17), and John Salmons(notes) had 17.
Rodney Stuckey(notes) led the Pistons with 22 points despite leaving the game twicein the first half after spraining his left ankle.
“The first time Stuck went down, I was really concerned, because the way hefell, I thought this was going to be another long-term injury for us,” Kuestersaid. “He not only went back in, he hurt it again and he still came back. Noone would have blinked if he had taken the rest of the day off, so he earned ouradmiration.”
Stuckey acknowledged playing through severe pain in the second half.
“It hurt a lot—it always does when you sprain your ankle—and then itjust gave out on me the second time,” he said. “I was going to play though itif I could even walk, though, because we need to get something going. There’s noway this group of players should only be scoring 87 points.”
The Bulls led 44-39 after a sloppy first half that saw the teams combine for22 turnovers.
Detroit got to 46-44 in the third quarter, but Chicago led 69-56 at the endof the period. The Bulls led by 20 as the Palace emptied during the fourthquarter.
NOTES: Charlie Villanueva(notes), who had stopped wearing the mask protecting hisbroken nose, put it back on for the second half, but only wore it for a fewpossessions. … Detroit has not led in the second half of any of its last sixgames. Their only lead in the last two games—at home against the strugglingKnicks and Bulls—was 2-0 against New York. … Thomas had 10 points in thefirst three quarters without making a field goal. He was 0 for 2 from the floorand 10 for 12 from the line.
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