Bulls' Hughes, Rose hold off Warriors 115-110

OAKLAND, Calif.(AP) Not many rookies would
have the bravado to hit a difficult pull-up jumper and an acrobatic
bank shot in the final minutes of a breakneck-paced game. Not many
players of any vintage would punctuate those shots with a finger to
their lips, telling a rowdy Oakland crowd to shut up.Derrick
Rose did it all in his 13th NBA game, leading the Chicago Bulls to
their first road win of the season in one of the league's most
forbidding venues.
Larry Hughes made five 3-pointers and finished
with 26 points, and Rose scored 23 of his 25 points in the second half
of the Bulls' 115-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday
night.
Drew Gooden had 18 points and 16 rebounds for the Bulls,
who won for the first time on their brutal seven-game trip stretching
from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. Hanging on required an extraordinary
finish by Rose, who scored 12 points in the fourth quarter before
leaving with a minor injury with 1:13 to play.
"We did a
marvelous job in the first half with Rose, and he figured it out in the
second half,'' Warriors coach Don Nelson said. "We're real big Rose
fans here. He'll be up among the best of them in a really short time.''
Hughes,
a longtime Warriors guard, and Oakland native Gooden kept the Bulls in
it until Rose shook off his four-turnover first half and took charge.
After Andris Biedrins tipped home a shot to cut Chicago's lead to
107-104 with 2:26 left, the top overall pick hit a jumper and then
stared down those 19,596 fans with that finger to his lips.
"We
really needed this one,'' Rose said of the Bulls' 0-5 start on the
road. "We thought we could come in here and compete against them, and
that's what we did. I had to shoot, and that's what I did. I stopped
thinking about what I did and reacted to it.''
Rose sat out the
final 73 seconds after injuring his hip in a collision with Corey
Maggette. He stayed on the bench and stood to cheer his teammates in
the final seconds."Man, it was a sharp pain that was there for a
long time, but I'm all right now,'' Rose said. "I've just got to ice it
and massage it tomorrow. I'm not missing (Sunday's game at Denver).''
Stephen
Jackson had 32 points and eight turnovers for the Warriors, who shook
up their roster by trading disgruntled forward Al Harrington to the New
York Knicks for guard Jamal Crawford several hours earlier.
Maggette
added 24 points, and Biedrins had 23 points and 10 rebounds. Anthony
Randolph provided a remarkable spark for Golden State on both ends of
the court, but the rookie's missed layup with 12 seconds left sealed
the Warriors' loss."It's the same thing, how we can't finish
games,'' said Jackson, who acknowledged disappointment at his longtime
teammate Harrington's departure. "Rose is good. Everybody's talking
about (O.J.) Mayo for rookie of the year. I don't know. I want to have
one of his jerseys up in my house.''
Anthony Morrow, the
undrafted rookie who scored 62 total points in the Warriors' last two
games, managed just seven on 2-of-9 shooting in his third NBA start.
Randolph had 10 points, nine rebounds and two dramatic blocked shots in
the final minutes, but he clanged the ball off the back of the iron
when he couldn't decide whether to dunk or make an easy layup on that
last shot.
Chicago won at Golden State for the second consecutive season after losing eight straight.
Nelson
tried fragments of several former lineups against the Bulls, using
bigger-than-normal rotations and even giving significant minutes to
guard Marco Belinelli and Randolph, the 14th overall pick playing in
his sixth career game. Both seldom-used youngsters were outstanding,
with Belinelli showing good playmaking skills and the 6-foot-10
Randolph displaying a killer between-the-legs dribble on a scoring
drive."Randolph stepped in and showed why we drafted him,''
Nelson said. "He's just going to be really good someday, so maybe it's
time to start playing him. He fits in really well with our small
lineup, actually.''
Notes: Warriors swingman Kelenna Azubuike sat
out with a sprained left knee. Azubuike had been starting this season,
but his minutes are likely to decline with Crawford's arrival, Nelson
said. Point guard C.J. Watson started in Azubuike's place, with Jackson
nominally moving from guard to forward. ... Lindsey Hunter hit a
3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left in the first half. ... Chicago's Luol
Deng dressed but didn't play for the second straight game with a
strained left hamstring.