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Bulls beat Nets to finish winning road trip

Dec 1, 2014 - 1:24 AM Brooklyn, NY (SportsNetwork.com) - Jimmy Butler had 26 points, Pau Gasol scored 25 with 13 rebounds and the Chicago Bulls led for the final 39 1/2 minutes on the way to a 102-84 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday.

The Bulls went 4-3 on the annual road trip they take while the circus moves into United Center.

"We just kept going," said Butler. "We didn't let up and we kept playing defense and kept getting to the free throw line."

Derrick Rose added 14 points in 26 minutes for Chicago and Nikola Mirotic had 12 points and 12 rebounds off the bench.

Bojan Bogdanovic scored 13 points to lead the Nets, who shot under 38 percent from the field coming home off a 2-1 road trip. Jarrett Jack chipped in 12 points off the bench in the loss.

Brooklyn was out-rebounded 50-34.

"I thought we played pretty well defensively, we just struggled to score a lot," said Nets center Brook Lopez, who had 11 points.

Chicago led by five at halftime and never trailed after that. Gasol scored 12 in the third quarter, including six during an 8-0 burst that stretched the lead to 10 points.

Rose's jumper several minutes later made it a 15-point game and the Bulls took a 76-63 advantage into the fourth.

It was never closer than 10 after that and Chicago led by as many as 24.

Earlier, Butler scored seven points in the first quarter and the Bulls made half of their 18 shots to lead by as many as eight. Butler's 3-pointer with 3:26 left in the quarter gave Chicago the lead for good.

He added nine points in the second quarter, including an alley-oop layup that gave Chicago a nine-point lead with seven minutes left in the half. His 16 points in the half helped the Bulls to a 47-42 lead at the break.

Game Notes

The Bulls will face Dallas on Tuesday in their first home game since Nov. 15 ... The Nets play city rival New York at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.