Preview: Bulls at Rockets

[February 03, 2017]  The Chicago Bulls opened a six-game road trip with a convincing victory and look to continue the momentum when they visit the Houston Rockets on Friday. Chicago rolled to a 128-100 thrashing of Oklahoma City in the opener of its trek and can move back above .500 if it can knock off Houston.

The large margin of victory helped perk up the Bulls, who have been mired in turmoil in recent weeks while being viewed as an underachieving team. "One of our better wins of the year, from start to finish," shooting guard Dwyane Wade told reporters. "Taking care of business. It's a good way to start this trip off." The Rockets certainly didn't take care of business on Thursday, as they squandered a 20-point lead with under 8 1/2 minutes to play and suffered a 113-108 loss to visiting Atlanta. "Once you turn it off, you can't turn it back on," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni told reporters of the collapse. "Then you start to overplay everything and they just kept going around us, going around us, and they made shots. You've got to give them their due."

TV: 8 p.m. ET, CSN Chicago, ROOT (Houston)

ABOUT THE BULLS (25-25): All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler scored 28 points in 30 minutes against Oklahoma City but has been one of the players involved in the tension due to an uneasy relationship with coach Fred Hoiberg. Butler understands part of the reason for his name being brought up in trade speculation -"Probably because I talk a little bit too much," he said - but both he and Hoiberg were on the same page after the rout of the Thunder. "I've really been impressed with how the guys have bounced back after a tough week," Hoiberg told reporters. "There's been so much negativity about our team, and our guys have stuck together and hung in there. A lot of things happened that probably needed to happen last week and guys got things off their chest, and we responded."

ABOUT THE ROCKETS (36-17): All-Star guard James Harden registered 41 points, eight rebounds and eight assists against the Hawks to record his sixth 40-point effort in the last 19 games - a stretch that includes two 50-point performances. He has been pouring in the points, but his team's fortunes have begun to sag with eight losses in the last 13 contests, and Houston hasn't recorded back-to-back victories since its nine-game winning streak ended on Jan. 11. The trio of Ryan Anderson (4-of-12), Trevor Ariza (1-of-12) and Eric Gordon (4-of-14) were a combined 9-of-38 against Atlanta.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. The Bulls won both of last season's meetings despite Harden averaging 30 points for the Rockets.

2. Houston C Clint Capela matched his career high of 22 points on Thursday and is averaging 14.8 over his last six games.

3. Chicago C Robin Lopez has averaged 17.5 points on 16-of-21 shooting over his last two contests.

PREDICTION: Rockets 113, Bulls 105

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