LaMarcus Aldridge helps Portland Trail Blazers out gun Chicago Bulls 100 – 89 – NBA Recap
On Friday night here at United Center LaMarcus Aldridge paced Portland trail Blazers to make a strong come back in the 2nd half as they out gunned Chicago Bulls 100-89.
Portland have gone through a lot lately and this victory against one of the best in the game is a good omen for them and their interim coach Kaleb Canales.
Trail Blazers stepped inside the arena after trading away Marcus Camby and Gerald Wallace. They also had to play under a new head coach as Nate McMillan was fired on Thursday.
LaMarcus Aldridge led his team with 21 points and Wesley Matthews chipped in with 18. Raymond Felton netted 16 while Nicolas Batum barely missed his double-double with 15 points and 9 boards. Nolan Smith collected 12 coming off the bench.
"That was so fun, honestly”. Jamal Crawford who had 8 points in the game said. “It was a great team effort. The odds were against us. I think that was our best win of the year."
Bulls had to play without Derrick Rose who is healing a sore groin. They had to face a lot of difficulties in his absence. Chicago had 4 players in double figure index led by Carlos Boozer, as he collected a game high 22 points to go with 14 boards.
Luol Deng chipped in with 19 and Joakim Noah tallied 12 points and 9 rebounds. C.J. Watson recorded10 points in Bulls’ 10th dismissal of this season.
Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau remarked after the game.
"We had no energy offensively and no energy defensively. We got out-worked."
The game remained highly competitive in the opening frame as late in the frame the scores were tied at 20 apiece. With some further back and forth action Bulls managed to conclude the segment with a slender 32-29 lead.
Early into the 2nd Blazers managed to reduce the gap down to 36-35 but Bulls came up with a 9-4 run to go up 45-39.
They couldn’t stretch it any further in the ensuing passage as Portland kept on pushing offensively, consequently the scores remained close at 53-50 by the end of halftime.
Deng opened the 3rd with 5 consecutive points to push Bulls further ahead with 58-50 margin. They were up 69-61 when Portland reeled off a 9-2 run to shave off the lead to 71-70 with 2:49 in hand.
Later on Bulls managed a fragile 79-78 lead as the game entered into its last 12 minutes.
Portland took command, 96-87, early in the 4th after pulling off an 18-8 spurt; they widened it to 100-89 and as the last 1 minute and 12 seconds of the game remained scoreless Trail Blazers banked their 21st victory of the season.
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