Preview: Bulls at Rockets
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[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."

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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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