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Bulls look for revenge against sliding Magic

Mar 8, 2007 - 4:49 PM Chicago (35-29) at Orlando (29-33) 8:00 pm EST

ORLANDO, Florida (Ticker) - The Chicago Bulls look to bounce back from an embarrassing loss Thursday when they face the struggling Orlando Magic.

Chicago suffered its worst loss of the season on Wednesday after getting routed, 103-70, by Miami. After netting a career-high 48 points against Milwaukee on Sunday, Ben Gordon did not have it against the Heat, scoring just 14 on 6-of-18 shooting.

With their lack of a reliable post scorer, the Bulls will need Gordon to rev up his offensive game against the Magic, who have won the first two meetings between the teams this season.

On November 1, Orlando started Chicago's eight-game road losing streak with a 109-84 victory. In the second matchup, superstar Dwight Howard dominated the paint en route to the Magic's 94-87 home win over the Bulls on February 26.

This is the third contest in a four-game road trip for Chicago, which is just 11-20 away from the United Center this season.

Despite poor play recently, Orlando is looking to win back-to-back games for the first time since posting victories on January 31 and February 2.

In its last contest, the Magic held Milwaukee to 10 points in the first quarter en route to a 99-81 victory on Monday. Hedo Turkoglu scored a season-high 25 points.

Trevor Ariza scored 20 points and Dwight Howard added 10 and nine rebounds for Orlando (29-33), which snapped a three-game losing streak and is one-half game ahead of New Jersey (28-33) for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.