Chicago ? Each time the Bulls needed a lift, Luol Deng took over.
Deng keyed two Chicago runs and had 22 points, and Eddy Curry added 21 points to lead the Bulls to a 84-78 victory over the Jazz on Friday night, Utah’s eighth consecutive loss.
Matt Harpring and Gordan Giricek both had 13 points for Utah, which hasn’t won since beating the Philadelphia 76ers 103-101 on Dec. 20.
Utah trailed by 13 late in the third quarter, but came back to tie the game at 70 on two free throws by Curtis Borchardt with 6:18 left. The Bulls pulled away for good by scoring the next nine points. Curry had a three-point play and made two free throws to make it 75-70, then Deng hit consecutive jumpers.
“I just played my game. I just kind of tried to take the same shots, they just fell today. I have been struggling a little bit with my shooting, but today I was kind of feeling it,” Deng said.
The Bulls tried to pull away in the third quarter, breaking a 48-48 tie by scoring 12 straight points to start a 17-3 run. Deng scored 11 points during the run, including eight straight during one stretch. He had a three-point play to make it 58-48, then Kirk Hinrich fed him for a dunk, and he followed it with a 3-pointer.
“Some guys are feeling it on a different nights, and tonight my shot was feeling great so it just happened,” Deng said.
Ben Gordon capped off the run with a jumper, making it 65-51 with 1:34 left in the third quarter.
Hinrich scored 12 points, and Gordon and Andres Nocioni each had 11 for Chicago, which has won eight of its last 11 games.
Chicago trailed by 13 in the first half.
“We didn’t have much energy, our execution offensively was not terrible, we just didn’t make shots. Defensively, we were as poor as we have been in quite a while, but we rallied back and played much better defense in the second half.” Bulls head coach Scott Skiles said.
Utah turned the ball over 24 times in the game, six by Boozer.
“They did a good job of getting into the passing lanes,” said Boozer. “They play good team D, especially when they block shots like they did.”
The Bulls shot 3-of-18 from the field in the first quarter and trailed 22-12. They came back by outscoring the Jazz 14-5 in a 3:40 span of the second quarter to take a 32-30 lead on Curry’s basket.
Mehmet Okur hit a 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds left to give the Jazz a 40-39 lead at the half. Giricek scored 10 points in the half for the Jazz and Boozer added nine points, eight of them coming in the first quarter.
Tyson Chandler had four points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots for Chicago.
Okur finished with 12 points and had 11 rebounds for Utah, and Boozer had 11 points and eight rebounds.
“Our guys have not really been quite tenacious enough to hang on the ball and make a good decision,” Utah coach Jerry Sloan said.
