In this season of lowlights, the Bulls have managed to avoid one embarrassing milestone. At no point have the Bulls trailed by as many as 50 points in a game.
That streak was threatened Sunday by the Houston Rockets at the Compaq Center. But the Bulls stiffened and refused to crack when the Rockets had the ball and a 49-point advantage.
Houston instead had to settle for a 123-78 victory that wasn’t as close as the final score. It was the Bulls’ largest margin of defeat this season.
The game was the last opportunity for the top two picks in last year’s draft to face off head to head. Bulls forward Elton Brand, the No. 1 pick, likely has closed the gap on the No. 2 pick, Rockets guard Steve Francis, in the Rookie of the Year race to the point that it could be a dead heat.
Both put up good numbers Sunday, but when the game was still in the balance neither was much of a factor. Granted, the game was only in the balance for about eight minutes.
Brand finished with 24 points and seven rebounds in 36 minutes. Francis scored 19 points, 11 in the third quarter, on 7-of-13 shooting, including 4 of 8 three-pointers, in 27 minutes.
Both also had their embarrassing moments. The 6-foot-8-inch Brand lost a jump ball to 6-3 Bryce Drew, and Francis was given a technical for mouthing off to referee Michael Smith.
“It wasn’t too much of a matchup,” Brand said. “[Francis] got into a little foul trouble and didn’t play much and I was on the bench because of the score for a while.”
Those with firm opinions on which rookie should claim the top honor were unlikely to have their position changed much by Sunday’s game. Brand says he hasn’t given the award much thought.
“There has been a lot of talk about it,” said Brand, “but [Francis] is such a top player, and so is [Los Angeles Clippers forward Lamar] Odom, that if I tried to catch their stats I’d be doing too much.”
Lately, it’s Francis and Odom who should be trying to match Brand’s statistics. The Duke product went into Sunday’s game leading all rookies in scoring and rebounding with averages of 19.3 points and 10.0 rebounds. Francis was second in scoring at 17.7 and led rookies with 6.7 assists. Francis, the much flashier of the two players, has Brand beaten hands-down if style points are weighed in.
“It wasn’t just a showdown between two guys,” Francis said. Too bad for the Bulls that it wasn’t. “It’s a team game,” said Francis, “and our team was good today.”
Bulls coach Tim Floyd believes the rookie competition already has been decided.
“[Brand] is the rookie of the year as far as I’m concerned,” Floyd said. “We wouldn’t change that pick tomorrow if we had the chance.”
As expected, Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich thinks otherwise.
“I’ll put my vote in today [for Francis],” Tomjanovich said. “Just like Tim will put his vote in.”
Houston shot 52.9 percent, including a red-hot 46.9 from three-point range (15-32). Walt Williams led the Rockets with 24 points. Even someone named Moochie Norris, who was signed for the rest of the season after completing two 10-day contracts, lit up the Bulls for 14 points in 15 minutes.
From the basketball power of West Florida, Norris resembles an extra from an ESPN Classic commercial–Afro hairstyle, headband and socks pulled up to the knees. Definitely old school, just like the whipping Norris and his teammates inflicted.
“It was rough,” Floyd said. “But you have to give [Houston] credit, they played well and hit their shots and kept us on our heels.”
The Bulls had to rally to reach 40 percent shooting (33 of 81) and turned the ball over 19 times. Ron Artest, who scored six straight points when Houston was up 102-53, finished with 22 points.
It was so bad that in the second quarter the Bulls committed a 24-second violation with no one, either on the floor or the bench, yelling for the ball to be shot. The Bulls were just passing the ball around as the horn went off.
