Chicago ? Ben Gordon got so weary in the first half from chasing Allen Iverson, he asked to come out of the game to catch his breath.
Gordon had enough energy left in the fourth quarter Wednesday night to put on a shooting display, and the surging Chicago Bulls pulled away and routed the Philadelphia 76ers 110-78 for their fifth straight win.
“Sometimes you just kind of get, you know, lost in the game. You don’t hear the crowd, you’re just out there shooting,” said Gordon, who had 19 points in the final period on 6-of-6 shooting and finished with 31 to match his career high.
“You don’t know how many points you have, you’re just out there shooting,” he added. “It’s a great feeling.”
The Bulls are feeling good about themselves, for sure.
With a pair of five-game victory streaks in the last month, they’ve won 11 of their last 14 and moved within three games of .500 after an 0-9 start.
If the playoffs started tomorrow, they’d be in as the No. 8 team in the East.
“I know I should probably make some colorful comment about it, but I don’t really have one,” coach Scott Skiles said. “We’re happy about the way we’re playing. I’m almost immediately thinking about six in a row.”
Gordon hit four 3-pointers and converted a three-point play in the fourth as the Bulls pulled away and opened a 35-point lead.
“When Ben gets it going, our guys know he’s getting it doing. Not only do we run plays for him, but they find him in transition. He shoots it as easy as anybody I’ve seen for a young player,” Skiles said.
He also credited Gordon for helping force Iverson into an 8-for-21 shooting night. Iverson finished with 21 points.
“I just tried to use my speed to try to stay close to him and contain him,” Gordon said.
Iverson said the Bulls have developed a swagger with their recent stretch of success. A month ago, the Sixers came to town and beat Chicago. Since that loss, the Bulls have become a different team.
“They have big-time confidence,” Iverson said. “Coming into the game you don’t expect those guys to beat you by 30 points, but when you look at their talent on paper and if you don’t come ready to play, you can see how they could beat someone by 30 points.”
Chicago, leading the NBA in field goal percentage defense, has held 20 straight opponents under 100 points.
Marc Jackson added 17 for Philadelphia, which had won 11 of its previous 12 games at the United Center.
Eddy Curry was 9-for-11 from the field and scored a season-high 24 for Chicago, while Kirk Hinrich added 16.
Chicago pushed a seven-point halftime lead to 13 early in the third quarter when Curry and Luol Deng made three-point plays in a 9-0 run. The Bulls led by 13 after three, and Gordon’s first 3-pointer pushed the lead to 18 early in the final period.
With a 25-7 run that included three 3-pointers by Hinrich and a 10-0 spurt, the Bulls built a 12-point lead late in the first half.
The Sixers clawed back to within five and could have been closer, but when Iverson took a pass and went hard to the basket, missed the layup under close guard from Hinrich and screamed for a foul. Hinrich then fed Curry for a dunk just before the buzzer and the Bulls led 45-38.
The Sixers were just 5-of-24 from the field in the second quarter and Iverson missed 10 of 15 first-half field goal attempts.
Notes: Sixers C Samuel Dalembert, who’d started the previous 14 games, didn’t play because of a hip strain, so Jackson logged 31 minutes. In the teams’ previous meeting won by Philly 93-88 last month, Dalembert had 13 points, 14 rebounds and six blocked shots. Backup Brian Skinner was hit in the eye late in the first quarter, had to leave the game and did not return. … Antonio Davis returned to Chicago’s starting lineup after missing two games with a hip pointer. … Philadelphia has played nine of its last 10 games on the road.
