Bulls let another one get away. Grizzlies rally for win.

 

Zach Randolph scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds.More important, the Memphis Grizzlies rallied from a big first-half deficit to beat the Bulls 105-96 on Thursday night. Randolph figured to show up in some highlights anyway, considering he helped his team rally from 17 down in the second quarter before tying it in the third. The Grizzlies finally took control with an 8-0 run late in the fourth that gave them a 97-90 lead.O.J. Mayo scored 10 of his 20 points in the final quarter, and Rudy Gay finished with 17 as the Grizzlies extended their franchise-record road win streak to six and sent the Bulls to their third straight loss.The Bulls wasted solid performances by Luol Deng (23 points) and Derrick Rose (20 points), who have been playing with sore knees. That didn’t stop Rose, who banged one knee in each of the previous two games, from driving for a poster-worthy right-handed dunk in the third quarter over Randolph.Still, Randolph got the last word. He finished two points shy of his season high and started the decisive run with a free throw that tied it at 90 with just over five minutes left.Marc Gasol (12 points) added a three-point play on a feed from Mike Conley and had a chance for another one with 4:01 left. He missed the free throw, Gay grabbed the rebound and Mayo put it in to make it a seven-point game with 3:50 left.This painful loss comes at a time when the Bulls have little room for error. Leading rebounder Joakim Noah is out with plantar fasciitis in his left foot, and the Bulls still have seven left in a tough nine-game stretch in which they must face division leaders Dallas (twice), Orlando and Cleveland.A healthy Noah might have helped on the glass, where the Grizzlies outrebounded the Bulls 46-31. Then again, his foot has been bothering him since mid-January, which is why the Bulls decided to shut him down for three weeks on Wednesday. A day later, they appeared to be in decent shape with a 49-32 lead with about five minutes left in the second quarter.They were still looking good in the third even after watching it dwindle to four.Rose’s big dunk got the lead back up to nine about four minutes into the quarter, and the Bulls were up 65-55 before it all went away.The Grizzlies ran off 10 straight, tying it on Conley’s driving layup with 4:33 left in the quarter before the Bulls called time, and they briefly went ahead midway through the fourth on a floater by Conley that made it 89-87. The Bulls’ Kirk Hinrich answered with a 3-pointer before the Grizzlies went ahead for good.

NOTES—The Grizzlies had 62 points in the paint to the Bulls 42……The home team had won nine straight in this series…..Blackhawks star and U.S. Olympic silver medalist Patrick Kane got a nice ovation when he was shown seated at courtside late in the first quarter.