Bobcats 83, Bulls 82
Derrick Rose tried to will the weary Chicago Bulls to victory down the stretch, but Gerald Wallace and Stephen Jackson had a little too much as the visiting Charlotte Bobcats prevailed, 83-82, on Tuesday night.
Wallace scored seven points down the stretch to give Charlotte a lead and Jackson scored the final four to offset a terrific performance by Rose, who scored 33 points on 14-of-28 shooting for the Bulls, who were playing their fourth game and five days and looked tired.
Chicago also played a second straight game without power forward Carlos Boozer, who is out with an ankle sprain, and his absence really hurt.
Wallace’s three-point play on a transition layup provided Charlotte a 79-78 lead with 1:13 left. Rose responded with his third straight Bulls bucket, following his own miss with 1:05 to play.
Charlotte went to Jackson, who backed down Kyle Korver and drained a tough turnaround jumper 18 seconds later. After Luol Deng missed a wide-open 3-pointer from the right wing, Jackson rebounded, was fouled and hit two free throws for an 83-80 lead with 36 seconds left.
Rose took it right to the hoop for a lefthanded bucket with 25 seconds to go, and the Bobcats turned it over on a careless inbounds pass after a timeout with 8.2 seconds left.
With Rose smothered, Kyle Korver inbounded to Kurt Thomas and took a return backdoor pass but had his shot blocked by former Bull Tyrus Thomas with 3.1 seconds remaining. Rose missed a contested jumper at the buzzer.
Rose got little help as Deng was held to 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting and his teammates shot a combined 16 -of-49.
Wallace finished with 13 points and 16 rebounds.