Chicago Bulls Team Report - March 2

(Basketball News) - The Bulls struggled mightily on Tuesday night, dropping a 119-89 decision to the Houston Rockets at the United Center.

Eddy Curry had a team-high 17 points and Ben Gordon added 15 off the bench for Chicago, which had its two-game winning streak halted. Kirk Hinrich, who came in as the team’s leading scorer averaging 15.8 points per game, was held to only four points on 2-of-5 shooting in 23 minutes.

Eric Piatkowski added 14 points off the bench, while Othella Harrington tacked on 13 points and nine rebounds. The Bulls committed 15 turnovers which led to 24 Houston points.

Houston made 56 percent of its shots for the game and was 9-of-14 from three- point range (64 percent), while the Bulls hit on just 37 percent from the floor and made only 2-of-16 from behind the arc (13 percent).

The 66 first-half points were the Rockets’ season-high and also the most the Bulls have given up in the first half this year. This was the Bulls’ worst loss of the season.

Chicago rookie forward Luol Deng left just 37 seconds into the game with a right ankle sprain and did not return. Deng is listed as day-to-day.

The Bulls remain sixth in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, 1 1/2 games behind Washington and Cleveland for fourth place. Chicago is 11 contests behind Miami for the top spot in the East.

Chicago has the next two days off before battling San Antonio on the road on Friday night. The Bulls will finish up their week against Milwaukee at the Bradley Center on Saturday.