The Official Site of Derrick Rose

Sat, Jan 16th 2010, 10:00

D Rose scores a career high 37 to lead Bulls to win

If ever an NBA game was destined for double-overtime, it was Friday’s game between the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards.

Derrick Rose’s floater in the lane with 5.4 seconds remaining in the second extra period lifted the Bulls to their fourth consecutive win, a 121-119 victory over the visiting Wizards.

The Bulls ran out to a seven-point lead in the first three minutes of the game, and the Wizards had a seven-point lead early in the fourth quarter. Other than that, there were less than six minutes of the game played with either team leading by more than three points.

The game was tied 29 times and there were 22 lead changes. That’s close, and competitive.

“That was a difficult one,’‘ Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro said. “Both teams were battling out there. We found a way. We made one more play than they did.”

“It got scary after a while,’‘ Rose said. “A team goes up by two and you have to go down and match their shot.”

Rose finished with a career-high 37 points, making 16 of 33 shots in over 50 minutes of playing time. He also had nine rebounds and six assists. Kirk Hinrich added 19 points and Luol Deng and Joakim Noah each had 17 points.

Antawn Jamison scored 34 points with 18 rebounds and Caron Butler had 27 points, both of them playing over 55 minutes for the Wizards. Brendan Haywood had 20 rebounds to go with 16 points, and Randy Foye had 22 points.

“Big plays down the stretch from everybody, guys from their side and guys from our side,’‘ Haywood said of the game.

The Bulls (18-20) have won eight of their last 11 games going into their second long road trip of the season.

The Wizards (12-26), who lost their fourth straight and fifth out of six since Gilbert Arenas left the lineup, actually had the game’s only real run, turning a 74-70 deficit late in the third quarter into a 83-76 lead early in the fourth quarter. That 13-2 run was erased by seven consecutive Bulls points, and the rest of the game was played shot for shot, miss for miss.

It became “last shot wins’‘ basketball.

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