It took overtime, but the Houston Rockets where able to get past the Chicago Bulls 121-117 on Friday night. The Bulls played without Jimmy Butler; who has a bruised heel and is scheduled for an MRI to check for any damage. The Rockets built a 17 point lead in the 2nd quarter, but the Bulls came all the way back and had chances to win the game.
The Bulls built an early five point lead at 8-3, but Houston scored 10 of the next 12 points in the game to take a 13-10 lead. The teams where tied one time and traded the lead three more times in the quarter before a Rajon Rondo 3-pointer with five seconds left gave the Bulls a 26-24 lead after one quarter.
The game was tied twice early in the 2nd quarter before the Rockets started building a lead. Houston was holding a two point lead at 35-33 when they went on a 17 to 2 run to open up a 17 point lead at 52-35. The Bulls spent that final five minutes of the quarter trying to cut into the Rockets lead. The Bulls did manage to get the Houston lead down to 11 by the end of the quarter as Chicago went into halftime trailing 60-49.
Chicago started the 3rd quarter by scoring 12 of the quarters first 14 points and the Rockets lead was down to just one point at 62-61. The Rockets pushed back a little and built the lead back to four points before the Bulls actually took the lead back at 73-72. The teams swapped the lead four more times in the quarter and y the end of three quarters it was the Bulls who had a 81-79 lead heading into the final quarter.
The Biggest lead the Bulls could build in the 4th quarter was eight points and they took that lead with 4:52 left to play and it looked like Chicago might be able to pull off a big road upset. The Bulls seemed to have an answer for every Houston basket, but with 3:05 left in the game there was a terrible foul call on Michael Carter-Williams that sent James Harden to the free throw line for two shots and it seemed to change the momentum of the game. It was also Carter-Williams 6th foul of the game. Harden hit both free throws and after the Bulls did manage to score right after that the Rockets scored the final eight points of the game and the teams where headed to overtime tied at 108 apiece.
The Rockers went right to the lead in overtime scoring the first five points to take a 113-108 lead. The Bulls worked there way back into the game and where able to tie the score at 115 all. A Dwayne Wade jumper gave the Bulls there first lead in overtime at 117-116 with 1:28 left to play. The Bulls weren’t able to score again after taking the lead and Houston was able to pull away scoring the final six points of the game to take a 121-117 victory.
James Harden led the Rockets and the game in scoring with 42 points, rebounds with 12 and assists with 9. Clint Capela had 14 points while Trevor Ariza added 10 points. Eric Gordon came off the Houston bench to score 21 points.
Michael Carter-Williams was the Bulls leading scorer getting 23 points before fouling out. Taj Gibson had 20 points while Dwayne Wade added 19 points. Doug McDermott came off the Bulls bench to score 12 points while Nikola Mirotic and Paul Zipser also hit double digits off the Bulls bench scoring 11 points apiece. Robin Lopez led the Bulls with 11 rebounds while Wade and Carter-Williams each handed out 6 assists to tie for the team lead.
With the win the Rockets improved to 37-17 on the season. Houston gets three days off before they host the 20-32 Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. The loss knocked Chicago back under .500 at 25-26. The Bulls are 1-1 on there current road trip and they’ll get a couple of days off before they head to Sacramento to face the 19-31 Kings on Monday night.