Aldridge goes off on Bulls to lead Blazers to 109-103 win

If the Bulls had kept LaMarcus Aldridge instead of dealing him on draft night in 2006 to the Portland Trail Blazers for Tyrus Thomas, they probably would have made the playoffs in 2008 and wouldn’t have had the chance to win the draft lottery and Derrick Rose that year.
So the mistake worked out in the end for the Bulls, who obviously are happy to have Rose as their cornerstone.
But just in case there was any doubt, Aldridge showed what the Bulls could have had by pumping in a career-high 42 points Monday night to lead the Blazers to a 109-103 victory at the Rose Garden.
Aldridge’s exploits (15-for-23 from the field) offset a nice bounce-back effort by Rose, who scored 36 on 14-for-26 shooting after struggling two nights earlier at Golden State.
“Every aspect of the defense was missing,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. “This is two games in a row where we put ourselves in a bad position because we weren’t guarding. Aldridge basically got whatever he wanted. We weren’t able to take anything away from them, so it was an easy game for them offensively.
“You’re playing with fire, you’re trying to outscore them and that’s not our game. We can’t win like that. We can’t win on the road like that. We have to get back to playing defense. There’s not one aspect of our defense we’re doing well.”
The Bulls (34-16) have dropped two consecutive games on the five-game road trip. It’s just the fourth time they have lost consecutive games. They haven’t lost three in a row this season and will try to avoid doing so Wednesday night in Utah.
The Bulls, who are 11-12 on the road, got off to a decent start on the offensive end, but they didn’t set the tone on defense as Thibodeau had hoped. The Blazers were 11-for-14 (78.6 percent) from the field in the first quarter in taking a 28-26 lead.
Leading 37-30 in the second quarter, the Bulls had a chance to stretch the lead further as C.J. Watson fed Ronnie Brewer for a wide-open dunk attempt on the fast break. But Brewer missed and that started a fast break in the other direction. Patrick Mills converted and after a Bulls’ miss Aldridge scored on an alley-oop dunk on the break to trim the Bulls’ lead to 37-34. So Brewer’s missed dunk resulted in a six-point swing.
At the start of the third quarter, it was the Bulls’ turn to get off to a slow start. Behind Aldridge and Miller, the Blazers opened the second half with a 15-6 run for a 65-56 lead midway through the third.
There was not a lot for Thibodeau to like during the run, but he was absolutely livid on the next-to-last Portland basket of the surge when Aldridge scored on a follow on the Blazers’ fourth shot of the possession.
But after trailing by nine, the Bulls rallied late in the third to trim the deficit to 75-72 entering the fourth. Down by a point in the fourth, the Bulls had the ball with a chance to take the lead. But Kyle Korver committed a turnover on a pass and that ignited a run of seven points for a 91-83 Blazers lead with five minutes left. The Bulls pulled within 94-91 with three minutes to go but got no closer.
“When you’re shooting 47 percent and scoring 100 points, that should be more than enough to win with,” Thibodeau said.