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Bulls-Hornets: 56k | 300k   Mash's game-winner: Play  |
New Orleans held a 97-94 edge when Mashburn went to the line. But the forward, who had split two from the line to give the Hornets a 97-93 lead with 41 seconds left, misfired on both. After a Chicago timeout, Jamal Crawford connected on a 3-pointer to tie the game with nine seconds remaining.
The Hornets, who were out of timeouts, worked the ball to the 6-8 Mashburn, who was guarded by the much shorter Rick Brunson on the right side. With his back to the basket, Mashburn faked left, spun right and swished a 3-pointer.
"We had no timeouts left, so we couldn't call a play," Mashburn said. "That might've been the best thing for us. They couldn't get their defense set, they didn't know what to do. At that particular time they switched, Darrell (Armstrong) gave me the ball and I just went out there and made the shot."
"There's nothing you could do there," Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. "We played good defense, the guy hit a fadeaway three. Nothing you could do. We had a bigger guy on him. We switched on to him because they were running pick-and-roll with Mashburn all night."
Mashburn had misfired on 17 of his first 25 shots before nailing the game winner.
"No matter what I shoot from the field, I've always had confidence in my stroke," Mashburn said. "I'm just trying to go out there and play and help this team do something in the playoffs." "I don't know how in the world he made it," Hornets coach Tim Floyd said. "He shot it from his hip, falling away. It was just a big-time shot, big-time play."
Mashburn scored 27 points and P.J. Brown added a season-high 22 and 11 rebounds for the Hornets, who prevented the Bulls from notching their first three-game winning streak since December 14-18, 2002.
Crawford scored 34 points to pace Chicago, which has lost 12 of 13 on the road.
Chicago took a 91-88 lead on a 3-pointer by Crawford with 47 seconds left in regulation, but Mashburn countered with a shot from the arc 15 seconds later.
Crawford missed a 3-pointer, but the rebound went out of bounds off Mashburn with 21 seconds remaining, giving Chicago another chance to win in regulation. But Crawford missed a high-arcing jumper with one second left.
"We just can't get lax with ourselves," said Mashburn, whose team is in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, one-half game behind Milwaukee. "We never should've been in overtime with the Bulls. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, and I just hope this win doesn't go unnoticed as far as what we have to do."