Derrick Rose Injury: 5 Reasons Chicago Bulls Can Still Shock the NBA in Playoffs

From Boston to Beijing, it appears the world has written the Chicago Bulls off as a team that simply cannot compete for an NBA title.

Their superstar and reigning MVP Derrick Rose has been lost for the season due to a late-game ACL tear and, subsequently, fans and analysts alike have labeled the Bulls as hopeless.

The complication in forming that theory is that they're not.

Here are five reasons the Chicago Bulls can still shock the NBA.

Coaching

It seems to be forgotten that, while the Bulls' MVP is gone, the candidate to win his second consecutive Coach of the Year award is still around.

You know, that defensive mastermind that they call "Thibs."

If you're looking for a coach who can adjust to the situation at hand, you've got him.

He's done it on 29 different occasions this season, winning .667 percent of those games. Don't think the former assistant coach to the Boston Celtics' championship run can't do it again here.

Defense Wins Championships

There's no denying how big of a void Derrick Rose leaves on the offensive end of the floor.

There's also no way around how much of an impact he makes on defense.

The fact of the matter is that the Bulls have one of the league's best defensive coaches and some of the best defensive position players.

Their defense will be alright.

Promising Track Record

The Chicago Bulls have played 27 games without Rose in 2012, going 18-9 with victories over the Miami Heat, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and their first-round opponent, Philadelphia 76ers.

That leaves the Indiana Pacers as the only Eastern Conference playoff team that the Bulls have not defeated without Derrick Rose.

While regular season and postseason games are entirely different from one another, the majority of this team was right there with Rose as they made an Eastern Conference Finals run in 2011.

The major acquisition that was not there is Richard Hamilton, who has won an NBA title and made another finals appearance.

Who said this team isn't ready for the playoffs?

Rebounding

With or without Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls are the NBA's best rebounding team.

Their 46.7 per game is .5 higher than the second-place Lakers and 2.8 higher than the next leading Eastern Conference team.

Chicago's 13.9 offensive rebounds per game are also first in the NBA, with their 32.8 defensive rebounds ranking second to just the Los Angeles Lakers.

The reason behind this is the immeasurable effort of players that the Bulls deploy, including Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik.  They also receive 8.5 per game from Carlos Boozer and 6.5 from Luol Deng.

This entire team can and will rebound. And as they always say, when you win the battle on the boards, you've likely won the game.

Three-Point Shooting

As the Dallas Mavericks showed us in 2011, three-point shooting can go a long way toward winning an NBA championship.

Fortunately for the Bulls, they possess six players who shoot better than 37 percent from distance.

None of those players happen to be Derrick Rose, who shot just 31.2 percent from distance.

For the season, Chicago is tied with Orlando for third in the NBA in terms of team three-point field-goal percentage.

They've shot 37.5 percent as a unit, holding opponents to 32.5 percent shooting from beyond the arc; third-best in the NBA.