On Tuesday, the Houston Rockets were desperate for a win at the Toyota Center against a hapless Chicago Bulls squad with massive height and length disparities.
A career scoring night from Bulls guard Tre Jones was ultimately wasted when Chicago ran out of gas late in the fourth quarter of what had been a fairly competitive clash. Jones, starting his seventh straight game for an ailing Josh Giddey, had an absolutely elite scoring run to keep the game competitive late.
Ultimately, Houston came away with the victory, 119-113.
Heading into the game, Houston had dropped four of its past five games (including an inexcusable 111-98 road loss against DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine’s terrible Sacramento Kings), and had been connecting on just 23.4 percent of their long range takes across that span. So you could say they were highly motivated.
Jones was doing his darnedest to make a difference. In a surprise wrinkle, the Rockets conceded the open triple, and he capitalized to a best-ever degree. He normally generates his scoring off drives, but he took what the defense gave him.
Troy Taormina-Imagn ImagesFirst Half: An Efficient Tre Jones Masterpiece Among the Trees
Bulls head coach Billy Donovan understandably started off with his best perimeter defender, Isaac Okoro, guarding Houston forward Kevin Durant. It got ugly early, as Okoro is (a listed) seven inches shorter than the soon-to-be-16-time All-Star. Okoro did what he could, but Durant pretty handily ate his lunch.
Initially, Jones was looking to get his teammates involved. But he eventually began working angles and taking advantage of coverage gaps to score more than usual.
twitter.com/chicagobulls/status/2011246419210858943Durant and center Alperen Sengun were often put on the same side of the hardwood to compel Chicago’s defense to make tough choices.
Saddled with an undermanned roster, Donovan brought in Ayo Dosunmu, Kevin Huerter and (shudder) Patrick Williams to spell some starters midway through the first quarter.
It really felt like the bigger, longer Rockets could have made this a blowout any time they felt like it. To wit, Houston went on a 10-0 run over a late three-minute-plus stretch near the end of the period — thanks to some wild Bulls takes early into shot clocks (Chicago had missed six straight field goal takes) and sloppy defensive rotations.
Huerter closed out the frame in style with a pick off Amen Thompson that led to a buzzer-beating try.
twitter.com/CHSN_Bulls/status/2011251063308095527A 36-28 second quarter Bulls edge helped power Chicago to a marginal 60-57 lead at the break. Two Bulls, Jalen Smith (12 points) and Jones (13), were already in double digits. Chicago was significantly outpacing Houston in assists, 16-9. The Bulls also managed to hold onto the ball far more efficiently, coughing up just three turnovers to the Rockets’ eight.
Houston enjoyed a huge advantage in rebounding, 29-20. Given the Rockets’ obvious size edge, this was hardly a surprise.
twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/2011255960405159964By the end of the opening half, the fairly back-and-forth affair had undergone seven lead changes, while the game had already been tied seven times. Chicago struggled to make much of a dent from distance overall in the first two quarters, going just 6-of-18 beyond the 3-point line.
Tre Jones was clearly the Bulls’ MVP for the first half. He notched 13 points and seven dimes, against just one turnover.
The biggest issue in Tre Jones’ game, beyond his size (he’s maybe 6-foot-1), has been his long-range shooting. The 26-year-old out of Duke had been making just 26 percent of his 1.6 long range takes heading into this bout. Heading into the game, he hadn’t connected on three or more triples all year. That changed in just the first half against Houston, per Will Gottlieb of CHGO Bulls.
He knocked down three of his trey tries through the half, and would ultimately finish with a career-most five made 3-pointers.
Bull of the Half: Tre Jones – 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting (3-of-4 from deep), seven assists (against one turnover), one assist, a +8 plus-minus.
+3 at the half.Tre Jones: 13 pts (5-6 FG), 7 ast pic.twitter.com/o7gOISj3Fa
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) January 14, 2026Second Half: Semi-Snoozing Rockets Wake Up Late
Midway through the third period, White had tied his prior career high with four made treys, per K.C. Johnson of Chicago Sports Network.
The Rockets had been outscored 68-36 across their last two fourth quarters prior to this Bulls game, against a pair of sub-.500 squads in the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets.
Jones singlehandedly accounted for the Bulls’ last seven points to close out the third frame with Chicago down by a possession, 90-88. Jones had chipped in a season-high 27 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the field already.
By the end of the quarter, there had been lead 27 changes — per Adam Amin on the CHSN broadcast, that number already represented the most changes in a Bulls game over the last 30 years. Again, there was a whole quarter left at this point.
Donovan trotted out a fairly big lineup to open the fourth quarter, looking to combat the jumbo-sized Rockets as they rested Durant. The 6-foot-9 Nikola Vucevic was joined by the 6-foot-8 Smith and Matas Buzelis, the 6-foot-6 Dalen Terry and the 6-foot-4 Dosunmu. After Terry botched a board attempt and was instead whistled for a foul against Amen Thompson, Huerter was quickly subbed in.
Nobody could buy a trey through the first half of the quarter. The Rockets weren’t feeding Durant enough late, with Reed Sheppard looking for his own offense too much. Still, Houston at one point led by six points near the halfway mark of the frame, and seemed on the cusp of pulling away — until Chicago outran the Rockets on consecutive fastbreak possessions. Back-to-back triples from Okoro and Dosunmu helped the Bulls retake the lead, 99-98.
twitter.com/CHSN_Bulls/status/2011274316256825518Jabari Smith Jr. guarded Vucevic down the stretch, with Sengun floating as a help guy.
Buzelis added to his career-best scoring streak with a seventh straight game of 15 or more points. After a four-point first half, the former lottery pick turned it on in the second. He didn’t settle for jumpers. Instead, he generated a lot of his looks off drives into the paint. The 21-year-old wrapped up the night with 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field (2-of-7 from deep), six rebounds and two dishes.
Vucevic, as is his custom, frequently debated referees for perceived missed calls rather than staying engaged in a play.
A sharpshooting Jabari Smith ignited a 10-2 Rockets run to build out a seven-point advantage, 115-108, with 71 seconds remaining in regulation.
Kevin Durant helped Houston seal the deal with a critical putback dunk late off a missed Amen Thompson fadeaway. The two-time Finals MVP also dished it out to Thompson on a bungled dunk attempt, Thompson drew a foul from Jalen Smith and made two free throws to put the game out of reach with 10 seconds remaining.
One big note: Nikola Vucevic played until the last second tonight. Vucevic, you’ll recall, always complains when an opposing team tries to score against Chicago as time expires with the game already out of hand. But he didn’t seem to mind a little stat-padding Tuesday, when he dished it out to Tre Jones for a meaningless, buzzer-beating triple to shrink the gap a bit.
It appears that the Bulls’ medical staff might just have no idea what it’s doing.
Coby White has been in and out of Chicago’s lineup for weeks now.
White was clearly rushed back from a one-week calf tightness absence in a 115-101 defeat against the Boston Celtics last Monday, Jan. 5. Chicago sat him for the subsequent game, a 108-93 loss to the Detroit Pistons two days later.
The Bulls then allowed White to play again five days later against the Dallas Mavericks. To his credit, the 6-foot-4 UNC product scored 22 points across 29 minutes during a 125-107 Bulls victory Saturday. But three days later in Houston (i.e. very much not on the next night of a back-to-back, which would be understandable), White was sitting again.
Kendall Gill once again supplied an incoherent argument on Chicago’s behalf to explain away this Houston loss, noting that the Bulls were “two men down” (in rotation pieces Giddey and White, although a third —Zach Collins — was also out) during his postgame recap for CHSN.
If we’re playing the “guys were hurt” game, Kendall, it should be noted that the Rockets have been missing their own starting point guard, Rockford’s own Fred VanVleet, all year. Houston was also missing key forwards Dorian Finney-Smith and Tari Eason.
So, claiming that — somehow — the Bulls were at a health disadvantage to the Rockets is simply untrue.
Next up, an ailing Chicago will host a far more beatable Western Conference foe, the 14-25 Utah Jazz, on Wednesday night.
Bulls MVP: Tre Jones — 34 points, seven assists (against two turnovers), and a team-high +2 plus-minus.
Numbers To Remember
There were a whopping 34 lead changes in Houston on Tuesday, obliterating the prior NBA season-high of 32. Despite that, the Bulls never really felt like they had much of a shot. Rather, it seemed like a far more talented Rockets club was slacking defensively, playing down to an inferior opponent. At most, Chicago led by just four points. Houston’s biggest edge was nine. Tre Jones submitted just the second 30-plus-point game of his career, notching a career-most the aforementioned 34 points on 11-of-12 shooting (5-of-6 from deep). His previous best had been a 30-piece achieved against the Bulls while he was still a San Antonio Spurs reserve. As our own Joshua Miranda notes, Jones’ teams lost both these 30-point games.JANUARY 13, 2024: Tre Jones sets a Career-High, 30 points in a game AGAINST the Bulls, in Texas (San Antonio)JANUARY 13, 2026: Tre Jones sets a NEW Career-High, in a game FOR the Bulls, in Texas (Houston) #bulls #nba ?
— Joshua Miranda (@JoshAMiranda) January 14, 2026 The Rockets enjoyed an ample field goal shooting advantage, 51.1 percent to 43.6 percent. They also crashed the boards significantly more, 61-47. Houston outscored Chicago in the paint, too — a 64-56 margin. With the defeat, Chicago falls to a 13-10 record in clutch games this year, while Houston improves to a surprisingly bad 8-12. Still, Houston is now 23-14 on the season, just three games behind the 27-12 Spurs. If the Rockets don’t trade Fred VanVleet this year, what are they doing? The Rockets’ two All-Stars, Durant and Sengun, each finished with 20-point-plus double-doubles. Durant notched a team-high 28 points on 12-of-23 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 shooting from the free throw line, plus 10 boards and four dimes. Sengun wrapped things up with 23 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the floor and 3-of-4 shooting from the foul line, 11 assists, seven rebounds, a block, and a game-best +19. Their efficient success is yet another testament to Chicago’s biggest shortcoming: frontcourt defense. Durant has scored 30 or more points five times in his last nine games. He didn’t quite get there tonight. But if he needed to do that against this very porous Chicago interior defense, he would have.FULL BOX SCORE
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