Thu, 11/05 Bulls @ Cavaliers

The scene following Bulls practice on Wednesday told the story of what's in store.

On one side of the court, center Joakim Noah spent at least 10 minutes dunking a medicine ball tossed by strength coach Erik Helland. On the other end, point guard Derrick Rose went through a rigorous shooting workout and ran extra sprints with player development coach Randy Brown.

Noah is preparing to guard Shaquille O'Neal on Thursday when the Bulls visit Cleveland. O'Neal just turned in his best performance since joining the Cavs (21 points, 8 rebounds) in Tuesday's win over Washington.

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The best way to neutralize O'Neal, 37, might be to pick up the pace. When the Cavs lost to Toronto last week, Chris Bosh sprinted up the court on most every change of possession and O'Neal asked out of the game quickly.

"Of course, we've got to make him run," Rose said. "They want to slow the ball down so him and (7-foot-3 Zydrunas) Ilgauskas can get down the court and clog up the middle."

"I know he's going to put his body on me as much as he can," added Noah. "So that's going to tire me. But that's definitely my goal, to try to run him down the court as much as possible."

Piston Boris wrote:I tip my hat to the Bulls.

This wasn't a pretty win, but Chicago got it done tonight. Noah did a great job of guarding LeBron, especially in the final seconds to save the win.

This victory helps puncture Cleveland's confidence in their home court superiority.

James' miss with 0.2 seconds left didn't just give the Bulls a different result from their last winnable road opportunity, Sunday in Miami. It dropped the Cavaliers' shooting percentage to .407.

Don't look now, but the Bulls, who shot 40.9 percent themselves and haven't cracked 42 percent on the season, actually are winning games at the defensive end.

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"He's a tough cover, but I knew my help would be there," Deng said. "I just couldn't give him a straight-line drive."

Instead, Deng, who led the Bulls with 15 points, forced him left and Noah arrived to form a wall at the rim.

"I knew that time was in our favor," Noah said. "By the time he started driving, there wasn't enough time for him to pass. So I got off Shaq and the best part about it is they called it our way."

James half-heartedly claimed contact afterward. But that's not why officials huddled to review the possession, which began with 4.3 seconds left after the Bulls' first turnover of the quarter, a 24-second shot-clock violation.

By Elias Sports Bureau

The last points scored by either team in the Bulls' 86-85 win at Cleveland came on LeBron James' basket that cut the Cavaliers' deficit to one point with 1:32 left to play in the fourth quarter. This was the first NBA game decided by a one-point margin in which neither team scored in the final 90 seconds since March 18, 2006, when the Bulls lost at home to Miami, 85-84, with the last point coming on a free throw by Gary Payton with 2:17 remaining in the fourth quarter.