Derrick Rose keeps showing up for the Chicago Bulls just when they need him the most, and he is making this playoff series an exercise in sheer misery and frustration for the Pacers.
DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Derrick Rose keeps showing up for the Chicago Bulls just when they need him the most, and he is making this playoff series an exercise in sheer misery and frustration for the Pacers.
No wonder Indiana’s Danny Granger compared him to a "crazy stalker ex-girlfriend."
Rose simply won’t go away.
Still, this first-round series is hardly a breeze for the Bulls even if they’re up 2-0. They could just as easily be down 0-2, except Rose keeps finding ways to lift his team.
Whether he’s getting knocked around like a human pinball in Game 1 or being swarmed by taller defenders and traps in Game 2, he continues to get the job done. Dominant as he was during the regular season, Rose is averaging 37.5 points through the first two games. He’s far from satisfied, though.
"We know that things aren’t right," Rose said.
The Bulls struggled on defense in the opener and their offense was out of sync in Game 2. They committed 22 turnovers, six by Rose, and it’s fair to say he was just a little upset about that.
"That could have been the game," he said. "Especially in the playoffs, you’re supposed to be a leader on the team, you’re supposed to take over games like that. I easily could have lost us that game."
Instead, he helped them win it. Now, Chicago is in control — barely — as the series shifts to Indiana for Game 3 on Thursday.
Few expected the Bulls to be pushed hard in this series after posting the league’s best record and capturing homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. Their best season since the 1990s championship era set expectations and anything less than a long playoff run would be a major disappointment.
Rose took another big step, emerging as an MVP candidate after going from Rookie of the Year to All-Star in his first two seasons.
He ranked seventh in scoring (25 points per game) and 10th in assists (7.7), making him the only player this season in the top 10 in both categories. The only other Bull to do so was Michael Jordan in 1988-89, when he led the league in scoring (32.5 points) and finished 10th in assists, according to information provided to the team by the Elias Sports Bureau.
"You can’t expect to stop him," Pacers guard A.J. Price said of Rose after Game 2. "You can only try to contain him. We did a good job of slowing him down tonight, but he still ended up with 36. We did a good job of putting different bodies on him with size and length but he found a way to score."
Rose had a career playoff-high 39 in the opener and nearly matched it in Game 2. While the six turnovers made him cringe, he again came up big down the stretch, just like a leading MVP candidate.
He had eight points in the final four minutes Monday after leading a game-closing 16-1 run in the opener that wiped out a 10-point deficit. That performance drew the "crazy stalker ex-girlfriend" comparison from Granger.
In Game 2, the Pacers threw bigger defenders like the 6-foot-8 Paul George and a variety of traps at him, and it worked to a degree.
The Bulls had trouble hanging onto the ball and putting it in the basket when they weren’t coughing it up, shooting just 38.6 percent. But again, Rose delivered in the stretch, hitting some big shots and making the right reads in the end.
Even so, is Rose getting enough help?
The Bulls’ second-leading scorer so far in this series is Luol Deng at 16.0 points. Rose downplayed the need for more balance, saying he’s "not worried about that" and his teammates "are winners."
Coach Tom Thibodeau was more concerned about the defense than the balance on offense.
"The ball is in (Rose’s) hands a lot," he said. "And we need him to score and he’s done it. Right now, he’s playing a little more than he did in the regular season so he’ll get more opportunities to score."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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