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Bledsoe leads Suns past slumping Bulls

Barry Gossage / National Basketball Association / Getty

The Phoenix Suns are going one way and the Chicago Bulls are headed the other. 

Phoenix squeaked out a nail-biter by topping the Bulls 99-93 on Friday to wrap up its eight-game homestand with a 6-2 mark. 

Eric Bledsoe nailed a contested shot over Bulls center Joakim Noah with 10.2 seconds remaining to make it a two-possession game and effectively seal the deal for Phoenix.

Bledsoe scored a team-high 23 points, Goran Dragic added 21, while Markieff Morris chipped in with a 12-point, 14-rebound effort. 

Pau Gasol had 10 points and 19 rebounds for his league-leading 30th double-double of the season, while Derrick Rose scored a team-high 23 on a lackluster 8-of-23 shooting from the field. First-time All-Star Jimmy Butler added 22 in the loss.

The Suns moved to a season-high-tying eight games over .500, and handed the Bulls their second consecutive defeat. 

Although the Suns remain in eighth place in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, they have a 2.5-game cushion on the No. 9 seed New Orleans Pelicans and are up four games on a dangerous Oklahoma City Thunder team lurking in 10th place. 

Phoenix - 16-6 over its last 22 contests - is now only 2.5 games behind the San Antonio Spurs for seventh and three back of the Dallas Mavericks for sixth in the West.

If the Suns were in the Eastern Conference, they would have a playoff spot locked up already, opposed to the fight they're bound to find themselves in throughout the remainder of the season. Phoenix's .583 winning percentage is identical to that of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who comfortably sit in fifth in the East. 

Chicago, meanwhile, fell to 8-9 in January and its once cozy lead over Cleveland no longer remains. 

Kevin Love and LeBron James powered the Cavaliers to an easy win over the Sacramento Kings on Friday, and trail the Bulls by only 1.5 games in the Central Division. Cleveland has won nine straight, and has morphed into the force many thought it would be since James returned from a two-week absence. 

The Bulls and Cavaliers meet Feb. 12, the last day of games before the NBA All-Star break. 

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