Perhaps it wasn't the precise shot they wanted, coach Scott Skiles having drawn up a lob to the basket to try to tie the game at the end of overtime. But the Bulls got the shooter they liked best, Ben Gordon with an open three-pointer from the left wing to win.
"I got a good look. I just overshot it," said Gordon, who led the Bulls with 24 points in a thrilling but frustrating 123-121 loss to the Golden State Warriors, dropping their record on this Western Conference road trip to 2-4.
The overtime game matched the Bulls' highest-scoring games on offense and defense this season. Individual statistics ballooned as Luol Deng had 23 points, Kirk Hinrich 22 points and 10 assists, Ben Wallace 17 rebounds and P.J. Brown 19 points and nine rebounds in his best game of the season.
But in the end it was a game the Bulls felt they gave away after leading by 14 points entering the fourth quarter. Former Pacers Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson did most of the damage for the Warriors, combining for 47 points.
The Bulls conclude the trip Sunday in Phoenix.
"As has been the case most of the season, we have had great difficulty executing coming out of timeouts and we did there at the end," Skiles said. "But we got a wide-open look by a very good three-point shooter, so we can't complain. We just missed it. We were [trying] for a lob dunk.
"That's [losing the lead] what we've done," Skiles said. "We relax when we have a lead. I brought a couple of guys in off the bench to rest guys and those few minutes cost us. Our defense in the first half was not good at all, but it picked up in the third. But for about a four-minute stretch we stopped running back, they beat us on penetration way too much. And they did what they do, they knocked down threes."
The Warriors hit 11 three-pointers, the biggest by Mickael Pietrus with just over a minute left and the Warriors trailing by one. It gave Golden State a 112-110 lead. The Bulls tied the game on Brown's putback on a second offensive rebound, but Jackson and Gordon missed to send the game into overtime.
Though Gordon had sat out much of the second half with foul trouble, he came off the bench in the overtime to hit two deep threes to put the Bulls ahead 118-116.
But the Bulls were unable to control Andris Biedrins, who rolled to the hoop for a basket as Wallace came out to double the ball. The Bulls regained the lead at 119-118 on a Deng free throw, but followed that with a Brown offensive foul and Gordon miss before Monta Ellis hit a floater with 43.9 seconds left.
Chris Duhon, who was terrific in a late fourth-quarter stretch, driving for two baskets after the Warriors had stormed back into the lead, collided with Deng, who retrieved the ball to cut the Bulls' deficit to 122-121 after two Jackson free throws.
Then the Warriors' Sarunas Jasikevicius sank one of two free throws with 10.4 seconds left, leaving the Bulls trailing 123-121 and with two options.
Neither worked.
"It's not discouraging," Skiles said. "It's [just that] we're doing the same things over and over again. We play really hard, get a lead, we relax and the other team comes back. It's happened all year long, and it's something we haven't been able to [avoid]. What makes it disappointing is we had control of the game."
That was after the Bulls opened the third quarter with a 19-4 run and closed it with a driving layup on an underhanded scoop from Hinrich.
"We have to finish," Deng said. "We have to execute."
sasmith@tribune.com