Chicago Bulls

Kirk Hinrich sparked the Bulls on both ends of the floor.

Hinrich scored 26 points and Ben Gordon scored all 19 of his points in the second half to lead the Chicago Bulls to a 97-91 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night.

The Bucks dropped their seventh straight on the road and have not won a game away from the Bradley Center since beating Atlanta on Jan 20.

Hinrich drew the assignment of chasing around Michael Redd, who led the Bucks with 30 points. However, Redd only had two points in the fourth quarter and shot 1-for-9 in the period. He attempted a career-high 34 shots.

``Obviously (he's) a tough assignment, but at this point in my career I would hope to be playing on both ends of the court no matter who I am guarding,'' Hinrich said.

Trailing 86-80 with 5:14 left, Hinrich led the Bulls back by scoring seven straight points in Chicago's 9-0 run. He hit back-to-back jumpers and then a 3 to give Chicago a 87-86 lead. The next time down, Deng went up strong on the baseline for a layup making it 89-86.

``If you never done it the way Kirk does it, it's hard to explain how hard it is to chase some of the game's best players around 2, 3, 4 screens sometimes in the same possession and almost always taller than him, sometimes stronger also, so he does such a good job of it,'' said Bulls coach Scott Skiles. ``I thought it wore him down a little bit, but he really responded late in the game. I thought overall it was (one) Kirk's better games.''

T.J. Ford found Andrew Bogut underneath for a basket to cut Chicago's lead to 89-88 with 1:11 left. Malik Allen answered for Chicago, taking Gordon's pass for a basket to make it 91-88.

Redd tried to cut into the Chicago lead, but Tyson Chandler blocked his shot. On the other end, Gordon hit a 3 for Chicago to give them a 94-88 lead with 30.1 seconds left. Bobby Simmons kept the Bucks in the game with a three-point play with 27.2 left, but the Bucks never had a chance to tie it.

Luol Deng added 12 points and nine rebounds for Chicago and Chandler had 12 rebounds and four blocked shots.

Chandler blocked Ford's shot with 25 seconds left leading to a dunk by Gordon.

``We didn't make shots at the end of the game when we really needed it. We played extremely well for 36 minutes of the game, but at the end of the game they really took over,'' said Redd.

Charlie Bell scored 15 points off the bench for, Ford had eight points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and Bogut scored 11 with 10 rebounds.

``We got the lead in the fourth quarter, but our quick shots got them back in the game. If we would have had the patience to move the ball a little bit more, we probably could have extended the lead,'' said Milwaukee head coach Terry Stots.

The Bulls led by as many as 11 in the first quarter. Hinrich sparked a 16-0 Chicago run in the first quarter. He scored eight points in the span and Chris Duhon hit two free throws to give Chicago a 28-17 lead. Milwaukee came back in the second quarter by outscoring Chicago 18-3 to start the quarter. Ford had a steal and a basket and Bobby Simmons followed with a 3 to give Milwaukee a 40-34 lead.

Redd scored 20 points in the first half for Milwaukee, who led 52-48. Redd hit 8-of-20 shots in the half. Hinrich led Chicago with 17 points in the first half on 6-for-9 shooting.