Bulls grind out win over lowly Pelicans

The New Orleans Pelicans entered Saturday’s game 6-16. They were without Jrue Holiday, Ryan Anderson and Quincy Pondexter and looking for a way to overcome a rash of injuries to keep in touch with the Western Conference playoff race. Oh, they played Friday in New Orleans and didn’t arrive in Chicago until early Saturday.

Yet the Bulls needed to rally in the fourth quarter for an ugly 98-94 win.

An Aaron Brooks floater with 40.3 seconds left gave the Bulls a 96-94 lead. Eric Gordon then missed a 3-pointer that would have given New Orleans the lead, which was followed by a Derrick Rose jumper with 11.5 seconds left that put the Bulls ahead 98-94.

Pau Gasol scored 18 and the Bulls had five players score in double figures. Brooks scored 17 points off the bench and helped the Bulls outscore New Orleans 34-24 during the fourth quarter.

Playing his first full game of the season without his mask, Rose had nine points on four of 10 shooting in 28 minutes.

As a team, the Bulls looked like they have most of this season. There were some fits and starts of progress, but nothing consistent or dependable. They shot 42.3 percent as a team and didn’t look much closer to playing the offense they want.

“You know what, it’s more portions of games. We try to go back and watch clips where we do things really well,” coach Fred Hoiberg said. “Then again, we’ll go out in games and we’ll have stretches where we do a great job and we’ve just got to get rid of those lulls. That’s the big thing. We’ve been stressing that.

“I know we talked about it a lot, but that’s what we have to do, is take away those dead times out there on the floor.”

Perhaps the sequence that best describes what the Bulls are happened late in the third quarter.

McDermott scored five straight points to pull the Bulls to within one at 65-64. After forcing a turnover, the Bulls had a chance to take the lead but Gasol threw a pass into the first row.

New Orleans’ Norris Cole made a basket and Eric Gordon hit a 3-pointer to put New Orleans ahead 70-64, and the Bulls squandered a chance to get closer when McDermott leaked out but missed an uncontested layup to end the period.

They did eventually take their first lead since the first quarter when Kirk Hinrich hit a 3-pointer with 9:43 remaining, giving the Bulls a 73-70 lead.

Anthony Davis and Tyreke Evans led the Pelicans with 22.