All-Star versus All-Star.

Most people who follow the Bulls are familiar with their annual circus road trip from hell, which happens in mid to late-November when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus moves into the United Center for two weeks. Less well-known is the “other road trip” that occurs each season in late-January to early-February, shortly before the All-Star break.

Historically speaking, the Bulls haven’t fared too well on the “other road trip.” Heading into this season, Chicago’s post-Jordan record on this annual journey was 18-42. And, believe it or not, the only winning record the Bulls had on this trip (before this season) was last season’s 4-3 mark.

As for five wins in a row, you’d have to go back to the 1996-97 campaign, when the Bulls went 69-13. Of course, that five-game streak included victories over sadsack teams like the Vancouver Grizzlies (who finished 14-68), Sacramento Kings (34-48) and Golden State Warriors (30-52). In all honesty, this five-gamer was more impressive since it included wins over five plus-.500 teams. But I’ll go one further: No team other than your 2009-10 Chicago Bulls has defeated five straight teams with winning records on the same trip since the NBA began in 1946. No, not even the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls team that won a league record 72 games…and had the G.O.A.T on the roster.

The Bulls no longer have the  G.O.A.T., but they do have an All-Star, and he played pretty well. Derrick Rose finished with 18 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals. His shooting was a little off (7-for-19), but he made two huge plays in overtime. The first was drawing a foul on David West and knocking down both freebies to put the Bulls up 106-104 with 2:13 left. The second was when he drove baseline, pulled in the entire Hornets team and then kicked the ball out to Brad Miller for a jumper that put the Bulls up 108-104. Of course, Rose lost the ball (which was stolen by Peja Stojakovic) with eight seconds left, which gave New Orleans a chance to tie or win the game before the buzzer…but, fortunately, that didn’t happen.

And as you can see from the play-by-play, the game ended with a steal by Rose.

With all due respect to Chicago’s newest All-Star, nobody on the Bulls played bigger than Luol Deng last night. Deng scored a team-high 26 points (10-for-21) to go along with 7 boards. His biggest two points, and his biggest rebound, came at the end of regulation. With Chicago down 102-100, Rose drove to the cup and got his shot swatted by West. Fortunately, Deng was there for the offensive board and putback with 0.2 seconds left to force the OT.

The right place at the right time. On the road.

Said Deng: “When you’re winning, everything is positive. We’re going into games expecting to win. A game like that, if we had lost four in a row, we might have lost it. But the mentality right now is we can win every game.”

Is this the same team that fell to 10-17 after losing to the Knicks back on December 22?

Nope. Not even close. And now the Bulls are above .500 (23-22) for the first time since they were 6-5 way back in November.

Mind you, it wasn’t all violins and roses. The Bulls went up 88-73 on two free throws by Deng with two minutes left in the third quarter and then…nearly collapsed. Chicago scored only four points over the next 11-plus minutes and the Hornets came all the way back to take a 97-92 lead after a three-point play by West. But the Bulls scrapped, thanks to some key plays by Rose (two free throws), Joakim Noah (an offensive rebound and putback), Miller (a nine-footer and two foul shots), and, of course, Deng’s game-saving putback.

And sure, it helped that Chris Paul injured his left leg near the end of regulation, which seriously hurt the Hornets in overtime. I mean, do you really think Darren Collison would end up with the ball in his hands at the end of a tight game under normal circumstances? Of course not. But that still doesn’t take away from Chicago’s gutsy performance at the end of a long Western Conference road swing.

Said coach Vinny Del Negro: “We showed some toughness and just found a way to get us to overtime. We weren’t as sharp tonight as we have been, but at the end we attacked.”

They sure did.

Other stuff:
Noah racked up another impressive double-double with 13 points and a game-high 18 rebounds. … Chicago’s defense held New Orleans to 39 percent shooting (39-99), but the Hornets almost made up for it by going 12-for-22 from downtown. … The Bulls outscored the Hornets 60-32 in the paint. … Chicago went 20-for-35 at the rim (57 percent) but only 5-for-20 from 16-23 feet (25 percent). … Tyrus Thomas had 11 points and 4 rebounds in 20 minutes. … As Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald pointed out: “Center Brad Miller averaged 13.4 points during the five-game win streak and hit 7 of 15 shots from 3-point range. Remember in December when Miller scored 4 points total in a five-game stretch?”

Former Bull factor:
Aaron Gray doesn’t think the Bulls gave him a chance. Said Gray: “Over there [with the Bulls], there was just no opportunity no matter what. They showed me that in the Houston game.” Gray said he’s optimistic about his chances with the Hornets, but he earned a DNP-CD last night.

TrueHoop Network:
Ryan Schwan of Hornets247: “That last play of regulation was crushing.  The Hornets have run that play a dozen times, but tonight three things went wrong.  First, West overthrew Paul by too much, forcing him to sprint into the crowd to catch it, Marcus Thornton went towards the basket behind the guy covering him rather than giving Paul a place to throw it to, and then there was the cameraman.  Frigging Cameraman. Paul goes down, his knee hurt, and he was unable to do anything in overtime, despite gamely hobbling around at the end.  Now he’s questionable for tomorrow night in Memphis.  Horrible ending.”

Extras:
Recap, Box Score, Advanced Box Score, Play-By-Play, Shot Chart, Photos.

You know, a lot of people predicted that the Bulls would come back from their Western Conference road trip with an 11-game losing streak, particularly after they kicked the journey off with an overtime loss (of the ”fourth-quarter collapse” variety) to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Instead, the team will return to the United Center on Tuesday for Johnny “Red” Kerr Night after a 4-3 trip that was like a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth. Or, to use a more appropriate analogy, it was like a go-ahead three-pointer at the buzzer that secures a critical win.

And make no mistake: The success of this road trip was absolutely critical. Players were rebelling. The fans were angry and losing hope. Jerry Reinsdorf was ripping the team and dissing the coaching staff. Now it looks like all that drama might have been the proverbial darkness before the dawn, because instead of the disaster everyone was expecting, the Bulls pulled off their first winning roadie since Michael Jordan was preparing to make Byron Russell the most famous poster boy in NBA history. The victories over the Clippers and Kings got things rolling. Wins at Phoenix (even though the Suns are imploding) and New Orleans (even if the Hornets were missing Chris Paul, Tyson Chandler and Mo Pete) were huge. And two of their three losses came in overtime, the first requiring a season-high 39 points from Al Jefferson and the second needing Dirk Nowitzki to summon some Promethean fire.

Speaking of which: Wow. Dirk, who hit only one of his first 10 shots, went 15-for-24 the rest of the way and ended up with 44 points. That total included the 14 he scored in overtime, during which he went 5-for-7. So yeah…I guess you could say he got it going. Joakim Noah, whose eyebrows may never grow back after Nowitzki’s scorching, said: “There were times when Dirk was shooting that I was like, ‘There’s no way he’s going to shoot.’ I felt like I was right on him. And he was just making shots that I don’t think anybody in the NBA can make. He has such a different game than everybody else. It’s hard to explain unless you’re out there guarding him.”

(In the interest of maintaining the feel-good vibe the Bulls established on their road trip, I’m not going to bring up the fact that Joakim is the guy who was used like an inflatable defender – first by Jefferson, then by Yao Ming and finally by Nowiztki — in the Bulls’ three losses. Whoops. I brought it up.)

But in all fairness, Dirk wasn’t the only Dallas player who burned the Bulls. Jose Juan Barea came off the Mavericks’ bench to score 20 points, and Jason Kidd — who hadn’t hit a shot all game, by the way – drilled a three-pointer with 13 seconds left in regularion to tie the score at 97-all and (after Derrick Rose missed a running jumper) send the game to overtime. So the Bulls were one improbable (and rather unexpected) shot and a superstar scoring explosion from going 5-2 on the seven-game road trip that was supposed to end their season prematurely? All things considered, that’s not so bad.

(One other thing worth noting. The Mavs lost Jason Terry when, early in the second quarter, he broke the the fourth metacarpal in his left hand during a collision with Barea. One could suggest that Chicago failed to take advantage of his absence, but it sure seemed to me that Terry’s injury gave Dallas one of those short-term bursts of inspiration. I mean, it wasn’t until after the injury that Dirk started Hulking-out. Coincidence? I think not.)

Some other notables from the game: Ben Gordan had a team-high 28 points (not to mention a game-high-tying 5 turnovers). Tyrus Thomas continued his exceptionally strong play — five double-doubles in the last six games! — by scoring 23 points (including a triple that pulled the Bulls to within two points with three seconds left in overtime) and grabbing 12 rebounds. Derrick Rose finished with 22 points and 9 assists, but he shot poorly (11-for-25) and had four of his shots stuffed. Speaking of misdirected shooting, Luol Deng had his second straight stinker since I deemed him “back” after the Rockets game (10 points on 3-for-15 from the field). Kirk Hinrich and Andres Nocioni chipped in their usual 20+ points of the bench — Kirk scored 10 and Noc had 13 — but Hinrich added another 5 turnovers to Chicago’s gaudy total (18). And all those TOs led to 25 points going the other way. That hurt.

Beyond the numbers, the Bulls showed — yet again — that they can be exploited by a superstar (or, in the case of Jefferson, an “almost All-Star”)…and that’s something that they’re going to have to address sooner or later. (Not by trading for Amare Stoudemire, though.) But right now, I’m all for sitting back and celebrating for a couple days. The trip improved their record only slightly, but at 22-29 they’re currently tenth in the East and only two games out of the last playoff spot. And you know what? I’ll take it.

TrueHoop Network: Go check out Rob Mahoney’s recap at The Two Man Game.

Extras: Recap, Box Score, Play-By-Play, Shot Chart, Photos.