All of the NBA executives who spoke on the topic of Kobe Bryant's apparent trade demand mentioned two teams to which Bryant could be dealt:  The Bulls and Suns.

ESPN's source says that Bryant has been looking at Chicago for the past month as a place he would like to continue his career.

Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Adrian Griffin, and Victor Khryapa are mentioned as the principal parts of a potential Bulls offer.  The Bulls also have the 9th overall pick in the upcoming draft.

This may be the best talent swap the Lakers could garner in a Bryant blockbuster.

Bulls lead assistant Jim Boylan had his second interview with the Pacers for their vacant head-coaching job on Tuesday, according to a league source.

Boylan is the only known candidate to receive a second interview besides former Heat coach Stan Van Gundy, who no longer is under consideration. Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis is awaiting his first interview.

Former Villanova basketball star Howard Porter died Sunday from injuries he sustained after he was found severely beaten in a Minneapolis alley last week.

Porter was drafted 32nd overall by the Bulls in 1971 and spent three seasons in Chicago.

The 58-year-old Porter was a probation officer for Ramsey County, but it was unclear whether the beating was connected to his job. Police said no one had been arrested and they had no suspects.

"The entire Villanova family is saddened by the news of Howard's death," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "Howard provided so many Villanovans with thrills on the basketball court playing for Coach [Jack] Kraft. Since his playing days ended, he has been an outstanding role model for our current players and coaching staff.

Bulls assistant Jim Boylan interviewed Wednesday with the Pacers for their vacant head-coaching job, league sources said.

Boylan, 52, met in Indianapolis with Donnie Walsh, chief executive officer, and Larry Bird, president of basketball operations, before returning to Chicago.

If Boylan isn't hired, he could land an interview with Orlando, which fired Brian Hill on Wednesday.

The Bulls were a good team in 2006-2007 but had a very obvious void in the low post, which could be solved if they get lucky in Tuesday's lottery.

"That makes me nervous," Paxson, the general manager, said Monday. "Last week, the league sent all the teams the combinations, so you see the small number you have. It's hard to dream real big when you see that."

One thing Paxson will not be doing is breaking up his core group of players.

"I'm not going to go and totally dismantle a basketball team on the hope that one guy we bring in at a position we need is going to be the answer," Paxson said. "We've done a lot of good things with our young players the last three, four years in terms of developing them. Now, they're playing at a very high level. They have confidence."

After talking to his players collectively late Thursday and individually all day Friday, general manager John Paxson put off his postmortem with the media until Monday.

"We'd like to add some interior scoring and length and athleticism," coach Scott Skiles said, echoing Paxson's comments from the first day of training camp in October 2006.

Paxson declined to include Luol Deng in substantive trade talks for Memphis forward-center Pau Gasol in February, meaning the need must be addressed via the NBA draft, trade or free agency.

"We need a big man, somebody we can rely on to score in the post and demand a double-team," guard Ben Gordon said. "That would free up guys on the perimeter and take a little pressure off us."

Armed with only their midlevel salary-cap exception of approximately $5.5 million, the Bulls can't count on free agency to net them more than a journeyman answer.

"As long as it's not me," Gordon said, smiling. "We want to keep everybody, but it's probably not possible if you want to bring in another guy."

That the players are cognizant of this dynamic only confirms one of the certainties of sports: Change is inevitable.

"Because of contractual things, we're obviously going to have some spots open," Skiles said. "We're going to try to go get people. We're going to have some natural change for sure. How much depends on once we start meeting and get around draft time and go over our roster."

The Pistons can breathe a little easier. There won't be a Game 7, after all.

Richard Hamilton scored 23 points and the Pistons beat the Bulls 95-85 in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Thursday night, clinching a series that turned tense after Detroit won the first three games.

No NBA team has lost a best-of-seven series after taking a 3-0 lead, and the Pistons rejected the Bulls' shot at history. Now, Detroit can focus on its fifth straight conference final.

Ben Gordon scored 28 points and the hot-shooting Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons 108-92 Tuesday night in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, pulling to 3-2 in the series.

Detroit opened the series with two routs and made a big comeback in the third game, leading some to predict it would end with a sweep -- or in five games at the most.

Obviously, the Bulls had other plans.

Game 6 is Thursday night in Chicago and if Game 7 is necessary, it would be Monday night back on the Pistons' home court.

The good thing for the Chicago Bulls is they extended their season with a Game 4 win at the United Center.

But now the Bulls must return to the Palace, where they were blown out in the first two games of this series by a combined 47 points. Facing another elimination game, center Ben Wallace admitted that the "pressure is still on us."

Bulls coach Scott Skiles said the Palace's atmosphere got the best of his team in the first two games of the series.

"They can be obnoxious up there," said veteran power forward P.J. Brown. "They were saying a lot of different things around the bench the first two games, and they were really enjoying it. They're great fans. They're like Chicago fans, like New York fans ? some of the best sports fans in the business."

"You've got to feed off of that. You can't look at it as a negative. I look at it like, hey, put the ball in the basket, get a dunk or something."

Bulls center Ben Wallace is all too familiar with playing at the Palace and insists nothing fazes him.

"I already knew how tough it was to come in there and play," Wallace said. "I'm just catching it from a different end. But I welcome all of that. I love being in those type of situations.

"That's what I work hard for all season, is to have an opportunity to go into a hostile environment and try to get a win."

Game 3 of the Bulls-Pistons playoff series contained very little stoppage time, as they say in soccer.

Even though it was a physical battle, very few fouls were called in the first half. Detroit shot its first free throws with 3.7 seconds left before halftime.

?With all the activity and banging of bodies and everything that was going on out there, we had 4 fouls and they had 6 at halftime,? Bulls coach Scott Skiles said.

?I thought that was a very well-officiated game. Sort of an old-fashioned NBA playoff game where nothing was ticky-tack. They were going to make people earn it and kind of stay out of the way and let the game happen the way that it happened.?