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Deng leads balanced attack as Bulls thump Cavs

Jan 21, 2012 - 4:47 AM Cleveland, OH (Sports Network) - Luol Deng scored 21 points, Carlos Boozer dropped in 19 with 14 rebounds and the Chicago Bulls rolled over the Cleveland Cavaliers, 114-75, at Quicken Loans Arena.

C.J. Watson added 15 points and seven assists, while Kyle Korver netted 14 points as the Bulls improved to 13-3 on the season.

"I thought our offense was terrific. Defensively, I didn't like our first quarter, but it got better as we went along," Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau said. "Our turnovers were careless in the second half, so that's something we need to clean up, but I thought we had a lot of guys step up and play well."

Anderson Varejao paced the Cavaliers with 14 points and Kyrie Irving contributed 13 in Cleveland's third loss in four games.

The game started out competitive, with the first quarter having six lead changes and one tie.

Chicago jumped out to a 13-5 lead off of three early Cleveland turnovers, but the Cavaliers responded with an 11-2 run to take a one-point advantage.

Irving finished off the spurt with eight straight points.

The Cavaliers then battled back from a five-point deficit later in the frame with a Varejao layup followed by an Alonzo Gee trey to knot the game at 23 with less than three minutes to go in the first.

But from there it was all Chicago, as the Bulls closed out the first with an 11-3 swing to hold a 34-26 advantage.

That lead stretched to as much as 19 in the second quarter as Chicago shot 57.9 percent from the floor in the frame en route to a 63-44 halftime advantage.

It only got worse for the Cavaliers from there, with the Bulls stretching their advantage to 85-61 at the end of the third and leading by as much as 42 in the final period as they finalized the rout.

"Things just didn't go our way tonight and there was definitely a lack of effort on our end," said Irving. "They played a great game tonight and we just failed to do some of the things that Coach [Byron] Scott wanted us to do from our plan."

Game Notes

Bulls guard and reigning MVP Derrick Rose missed his third straight game because of a toe injury...Chicago improved to 8-3 on the road this season, while Cleveland fell to 2-3 at home...Cleveland shot 30.3 percent in the game but went 7-for-14 from three-point range...Chicago has won six straight contests between the teams.