When the Chicago Bulls won in Sacramento on November 14, they were hoping they would get their next away victory before Thanksgiving at the latest. That would have given them until November 26; instead, it took until New Year's Eve. Derrick Rose scored 22 points and Joakim Noah added 15 points and 21 rebounds to help the Bulls beat Detroit 98-87 on Thursday night and end their six-week road drought
"This feels good," Noah said after Chicago won their 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, who joined Detroit from Chicago this summer. "Ben's role is to score the ball, and I'm playing point guard, so no one said anything about this being me against him," Rose said. "I'll do whatever it takes for us to win, and today that took being aggressive."
Chicago had lost eight consecutive away games, but never trailed while handing Detroit their ninth defeat in a row. The Pistons (11-21) are 10 games under .500 for the first time since the 2000-01 season, but their coach, John Kuester, was still confident. "I saw a number of positive things out there," he said. "I'm sure people are going to hear that and say, 'You must be kidding,' but we did some good things.
"We lost Rip [Hamilton], Tayshaun [Prince] and Ben Gordon for extended periods of time, and there's no chance that they were going to come right back in mid-season form." Elsewhere in the NBA, Aaron Brooks scored 30 points, including a crucial three-pointer with 95 seconds left, as the Houston Rockets beat the Dallas Mavericks 97-94. A much more one-sided affair in Texas saw the San Antonio Spurs thrash the Miami Heat 108-78. Tim Duncan scored 23 points and collected 10 rebounds as the Spurs won their fourth in a row.
Nick Collison scored with two free throws with 4.5 seconds remaining to give the Oklahoma City Thunder a dramatic 87-86 victory over the Utah Jazz. And in the final NBA game of the decade, on the US West Coast, the LA Clippers beat the Philadelphia 76ers 104-88. * With agencies
