Golden State’s Andris Biedrins pours in 23 points, pulls down 10
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OAKLAND
Not many rookies would have the bravado to hit a difficult pull-up jumper and an acrobatic bank shot in the final minutes of a breakneck-paced game. Not many players of any vintage would punctuate those shots with a finger to their lips, telling a rowdy Oakland crowd to shut up.
Derrick Rose did it all in his 13th NBA game, leading the Chicago Bulls to their first road win of the season in one of the league’s most forbidding venues.
Larry Hughes made five 3-pointers and finished with 26 points, and Rose scored 23 of his 25 points in the second half of the Bulls’ 115-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday night.
Drew Gooden had 18 points and 16 rebounds for the Bulls, who won for the first time on their brutal seven-game trip stretching from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. Hanging on required an extraordinary finish by Rose, who scored 12 points in the fourth quarter before leaving with a minor injury with 1:13 to play.
“We did a marvelous job in the first half with Rose, and he figured it out in the second half,” Warriors coach Don Nelson said. “We’re real big Rose fans here. He’ll be up among the best of them in a really short time.”
Hughes, a longtime Warriors guard, and Oakland native Gooden kept the Bulls in it until Rose shook off his four-turnover first half and took charge. After Andris Biedrins tipped home a shot to cut Chicago’s lead to 107-104 with 2:26 left, the top overall pick hit a jumper and then stared down those 19,596 fans with that finger to his lips.
“We really needed this one,” Rose said of the Bulls’ 0-5 start on the road. “We thought we could come in here and compete against them, and that’s what we did. I had to shoot, and that’s what I did. I stopped thinking about what I did and reacted to it.”
Rose sat out the final 73 seconds after injuring his hip in a collision with Corey Maggette. He stayed on the bench and stood to cheer his teammates in the final seconds.
“Man, it was a sharp pain that was there for a long time, but I’m all right now,” Rose said. “I’ve just got to ice it and massage it tomorrow. I’m not missing (Sunday’s game at Denver).”
Stephen Jackson had 32 points and eight turnovers for the Warriors, who shook up their roster by trading disgruntled forward Al Harrington to the New York Knicks for guard Jamal Crawford several hours earlier.
Maggette added 24 points, and Biedrins had 23 points and 10 rebounds. Anthony Randolph provided a remarkable spark for Golden State on both ends of the court, but the rookie’s missed layup with 12 seconds left sealed the Warriors’ loss.
“It’s the same thing, how we can’t finish games,” said Jackson, who acknowledged disappointment at his longtime teammate Harrington’s departure. “Rose is good. Everybody’s talking about (O.J.) Mayo for rookie of the year. I don’t know. I want to have one of his jerseys up in my house.”
Anthony Morrow, the undrafted rookie who scored 62 total points in the Warriors’ last two games, managed just seven on 2-of-9 shooting in his third NBA start. Randolph had 10 points, nine rebounds and two dramatic blocked shots in the final minutes, but he clanged the ball off the back of the iron when he couldn’t decide whether to dunk or make an easy layup on that last shot.
Chicago won at Golden State for the second consecutive season after losing eight straight.
Nelson tried fragments of several former lineups against the Bulls, using bigger-than-normal rotations and even giving significant minutes to guard Marco Belinelli and Randolph, the 14th overall pick playing in his sixth career game. Both seldom-used youngsters were outstanding, with Belinelli showing good playmaking skills and the 6-foot-10 Randolph displaying a killer between-the-legs dribble on a scoring drive.
“Randolph stepped in and showed why we drafted him,” Nelson said. “He’s just going to be really good someday, so maybe it’s time to start playing him. He fits in really well with our small lineup, actually.”
Notes:
Warriors swingman Kelenna Azubuike sat out with a sprained left knee. Azubuike had been starting this season, but his minutes are likely to decline with Crawford’s arrival, Nelson said. Point guard C.J. Watson started in Azubuike’s place, with Jackson nominally moving from guard to forward. … Lindsey Hunter hit a 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left in the first half. … Chicago’s Luol Deng dressed but didn’t play for the second straight game with a strained left hamstring.
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Story by Greg Beacham, AP Sports Writer
