NBA Game Summary - Indiana at Chicago 03.26.2005
|
Chicago, IL (Basketball News) - Eddy Curry scored 27 points and Ben Gordon added 20 off the bench, leading the Chicago Bulls to a 100-96 victory over Indiana at the United Center.
Othella Harrington and Luol Deng chipped in 14 and 13 points off the bench, respectively, for the Bulls, who won their fifth straight game to pull within one-half game of idle Washington for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.
Stephen Jackson poured in 34 points to lead the Pacers, who had a two-game win streak snapped. Fred Jones added 20 points and Austin Croshere scored 16 in the loss.
Indiana was coming off a win at Detroit on Friday night in the team’s first trip there since the now-infamous November 19 fight. The game was delayed 97 minutes because of a bomb threat to the Indiana locker room.
The Pacers came out flat in this one, falling behind by 12 points midway through the first quarter when a Curry dunk made it 19-7.
The Chicago lead was 33-23 heading into the second and 55-45 at halftime.
Indiana was within 75-68 at the end of the third quarter, and later used a 7-0 burst to close the gap to 94-90 on a Jones layup with 28 seconds remaining.
But the Bulls quickly scored three points to make it a seven-point game.
The only thing that kept the Pacers close were a pair of Jackson three- pointers, the last of which cut the Chicago lead to three points. But there was just five seconds remaining, and Deng sealed the win with a free throw at the other end.
Indiana remained one game behind Cleveland for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.