Derrick Rose Struggling to Find a Rhythm After All-Star Break
CHICAGO — During the extended All-Star break, Derrick Rose did not touch a basketball. He needed a breather from a season that’s been a complete roller coaster for both himself and the Chicago Bulls. But as a rough three-game stretch coming off of his mini vacation shows, this season is still very much a work in progress for the former MVP.
Rose shot 1-of-13 from the field Monday night, his only make a three-pointer in the first quarter. It didn’t matter, as the Bulls were able to blow out the Milwaukee Bucks, 87-71, without him. But this latest dud comes just three days after another of Rose’s worst performances of the season, when he shot 2-of-9 with six turnovers in a Friday loss to the Detroit Pistons and was lit up by Spencer Dinwiddie, a D-League-level talent.
“I’ve shot worse before, so it’s nothing big,” Rose said after the game.
Except he hasn’t. Monday night’s game is tied for Rose’s worst shooting performance of his career: He also shot 1-of-13 in a win over the Miami Heat on April 12, 2012, a couple of weeks before the first of two season-ending knee injuries that have set him on the path of uncertainty he has walked for the last two years.
After ending the first part of the season on a high note, scoring 30 points in a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Feb. 12, Rose has been undeniably rusty.
“You take five days off any job, you’ve got to get back in a rhythm,” Rose admitted. “That’s the most days I took off in two years.”
It’s all a part of the conditioning process, and that’s a battle Rose has fought all season. First, it was a fairly stringent minutes limit. That’s gone now. Rose is playing freely for the first time in over two years, but with that comes relearning how to power through rough patches.
“I liked the way he played tonight, even if he did not shoot well,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Even though he was not shooting well, he was doing other things to help the team win.”
At this point, that’s all he can do. Earlier in the season, Rose was more hesitant to drive. Now, he’s doing that, but the effectiveness comes and goes. Every difficult stretch he fights through is going to teach him something. He knows that, and to his credit, he’s maintained the same steady approach and demeanor throughout the year. Only he knows how hard he’s worked to come back from two career-threatening injuries. He’s not going to get bent out of shape over a few bad games.
Especially not when the Bulls have had their full lineup available so few times over the course of the season. On Monday night, they were without two rotation players, Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich (both sick). The Pistons loss on Friday was the first time since Nov. 10 that the Bulls had every player at their disposal, and that streak lasted exactly one game before Hinrich fell ill.
The constantly changing rotations necessitated by the missed games have only steepened Rose’s learning curve as he attempts to get his career back on track. He’s navigating the ever-evolving set of teammates he’s given, but he has his own struggles to work out, and he’ll have to do that regardless of the players on the floor with him.
“I’m comfortable,” Rose said. “I play with these guys all the time in practice, it’s just in the game I haven’t had the opportunity to play with them yet. It’s all about learning. This is an experience I’m learning from.”
If there’s a time to learn and work out the kinks, it’s now. The playoffs are less than two months away, and there will be no leeway for Rose to simply shoot himself out of slumps. A 1-of-13 performance against a shorthanded Bucks team in February is nothing. But a performance like that against, say, the Cleveland Cavaliers or Atlanta Hawks in a win-or-go-home situation could mean everything.
This Bulls team, when healthy, is as good as any in the league. But they need Rose at his best by April in order to experience Rose at his best in May and June, which is the ultimate goal. The Bulls have enough weapons that they don’t need to rely solely on him, but they’re not going to win a playoff series against a championship contender unless everybody is at the top of their game. And that starts with Rose.
Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin
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