NBA: Miami Heat at Chicago Bulls
The Bulls had 25 assists in their upset of the Heat led by Noah's 7 dimes. Three other players had exactly 4 assists each Reuters

Both the Houston Rockets and Chicago Bulls were blown to pieces in their last outing. They face each other on Thursday night hoping for a bounce back game a return to the win column.

The Bulls have struggled of late winning just 2 of their last 5 games including an embarrassing home loss to the San Antonio Spurs, 104-96.

Defense was just non-existent in the first half for the Bulls, which allowed the Spurs to score 38 points in the opening period. On offense, the Bulls were led by Jimmy Butler (23 points) and D.J. Augustin (24 points), who came off the bench.

The Rockets had their five-game winning streak snapped at Oklahoma City as the Thunder easily won to the tune of 106-98. Houston allowed OKC to score 56 points in the first half and just couldn’t find their own offense early. Repeated rallies from the Rockets were answered by the Thunder in the second half.

James Harden had 28 points to lead the Rockets but Dwight Howard only had 9 points missing 8 of 12 shots from the field.

It’s also a battle between squads on opposite ends of the spectrum. The visiting Rockets are one of the highest scoring teams in the NBA logging in 106.5 points per game (3rd) and they’ll meet a Bulls team which is one of the top defensive squads limiting the opposition to just 92.3 PPG.

The Rockets have won four consecutive games versus the Bulls in their head-to-head match-up including a pair of blowouts in the last two outings. The last meeting was a 109-04 victory on December 18. Dwight Howard had 23 points and 9 rebounds in that game and James Harden finished with 19 markers with 6 assists and 3 steals.

Will the Bulls’ defense show up at home versus the Rockets? Or will Houston recover and go back to its high-scoring ways? Watch the Houston-Chicago game via NBA League Pass.