Bulls finish road trip with win over Knicks

The Bulls have just one thing to say:

Thank God for the Knicks.

Chicago finished up a nightmarish seven-game road trip on Saturday night, beating the even-more-hapless New York Knickerbockers, 106-95. The Bulls had lost the first six games of the trip by a combined score of 630-571.

The long road trip is an annual early-season tradition for Chicago as the United Center (and previously the Chicago Stadium) hosts the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus for nearly two weeks. It’s annually the longest road trip by an NBA team and when the Bulls were good, it was an advantage, getting a chunk of the road schedule out of the way early. In the post-Jordan era, Chicago has had a much tougher go of it. This year’s fiasco left the Bulls with a 4-9 record, tied with Milwaukee for last place in the NBA’s Central Division.

Worse for the Bulls, even in victory, there was controversey. Center Ben Wallace was benched in the third quarter because he violated a team rule against wearing headbands. Wallace wore the headband in the first quarter, something he did when he played in Detroit. Chicago coach Scott Skiles didn’t explain why it took until after halftime to discipline Wallace.

Luol Deng led the Bulls with 24 points while Kirk Hinrich had 21 and Andres Nocioni scored 19.

Now Chicago hosts those same Knicks on Tuesday, the beginning of a stretch of nine out of 10 games at home. The Bulls need to string together some wins if they want to get back in the race.

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