Bulls go on the road to face Pistons

(SportsNetwork.com) - The Chicago Bulls haven't played so well on the road of late and hope to change that Saturday against the Detroit Pistons.

The Bulls own a strong 20-14 road mark, but have lost two straight and five of their last six games as the visiting team.

Chicago is in the hunt for a Central title and sits 2 1/2 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for both division supremacy and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls have won two in a row after losing five of six games, and are coming off Friday's 108-92 victory over Toronto.

The Raptors are now a half-game in back of the Bulls for the third spot in the conference. Nikola Mirotic came off the Chicago bench for a game-high 29 points on 11-of-21 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds. Mike Dunleavy scored 21 points and Joakim Noah recorded eight points, 14 assists and 10 boards for Chicago, which shot 53.2 percent for the game and held Toronto to 38 percent.

"We were hitting on all cylinders tonight on the offensive end," Dunleavy said. "Hopefully we can keep playing this way."

The Bulls have scored more than 100 points in the last three games and will host the Charlotte Hornets on Monday.

Detroit snapped a 10-game losing streak on Tuesday with a home win over the Memphis Grizzlies, then went out and immediately started a new one on Wednesday thanks to a 94-83 road loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope led the Pistons with 20 points, followed by Reggie Jackson, who had a triple-double with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Andre Drummond grabbed 14 rebounds to go with his nine points.

Hollis Thompson scored five points during an 8-2 Sixers run to start the fourth. Detroit went cold down the stretch as Jodie Meeks' trey with 1:53 to go represented the team's first field goal in over five minutes as Philadelphia cruised to the win.

Detroit was done in by 18 turnovers, which led to 22 Sixers points.

"It was terrible and it was a thing we made a huge point about," Detroit head coach Stan Van Gundy said of his team's turnovers. "We knew there would be people open and we didn't do a damn thing about it. I didn't see any focus whatsoever in being strong with the ball."

Greg Monroe missed his second consecutive game with a right knee strain. He is listed as doubtful for Saturday night and may miss Sunday's road contest in Boston.

The Pistons are 13-21 at home and six games off the eighth seed in the East.

The Central Division rivals have split two meetings this season with the home team prevailing each time. Chicago is 22-3 against the Pistons over the last six years, but those three wins for Detroit came in the last four games contested in Motown.