Rose having tough time lately on offense and defense
The most obvious reasons why the Bulls lost to Portland on Monday were because backup forward Travis Outlaw exploded for 33 points and the Blazers knocked down 11 of 23 shots from 3-point range.
But many of those baskets had origins from the point guard position. The Bulls' consistently gave up penetration and when players scrambled to help defensively, the Blazers found the open man and usually buried long-range jumpers.
From the beginning of the season, the Bulls knew rookie Derrick Rose had plenty of room to improve on defense. Portland proved to be a difficult challenge as starting point guard Steve Blake consistently drove past Rose to notch 10 assists, while rookie guard Jerryd Bayless came off the bench to score 7 points in nine minutes. Bayless had tallied 41 points all season before Monday.
Asked if anything could be done now to help Rose with his defense, Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro had a few suggestions.
"Maybe cut his minutes down a little bit," Del Negro suggested. "We'll watch film on the plane (to Toronto). We'll talk and show him things, how to cut angles off. Kirk (Hinrich) does a very good job on that stuff, so having Kirk back and working with Derrick as well, there's value in that."
When Portland took command with a 14-3 run late in the first half, Blake created baskets on four straight possessions.
First, the sixth-year guard from Maryland drilled a corner 3-pointer. Then he was able to turn the corner three times, finding LaMarcus Aldridge and Outlaw for layins, before finally finishing a reverse lay in himself.
Defense aside, Rose's offensive performance has also slid recently. He's averaged 13.0 points and shot 40.7 percent so far in January, compared to 18.9 points and 49.6 percent in November. His assists are up slightly, from 6.1 in November to 6.7 in January.
The most obvious answer for Rose's struggles is defenses have ganged up on him, trying everything possible to prevent him from driving all the way to the basket and daring the other Bulls to beat them. The Bulls are 16-22 heading into tonight's game at Toronto, so the schemes have been successful more often than not.
"I notice teams are playing a little bit different, trying to get the basketball out of his hands, like they did (Monday) night," Del Negro said. "You could see the difference of his improvement compared to when we played (the Blazers) early in the season when they were pressing us to how he handled it (Monday)."
At one point during Monday's game, Drew Gooden could be observed having an animated conversation with Rose at the foul line. Gooden's not the type to criticize a teammate during the game. More likely, he was encouraging Rose to mount attacks at the basket.
"I try to talk to him as much as possible," Gooden said. "I told him if teams go underneath the pick, to be aggressive shooting his jumper or get in the paint and attack. I think the next time he came down he got an and-one (basket and free-throw attempt) on Greg Oden."
No defenders have been able to stay with Rose on the perimeter, but he seems to have his best scoring games against teams with few shot-blocking threats. Toronto's best shot-blocker, Jermaine O'Neal, is out with a knee injury, while point guard Jose Calderon has missed four of the last five games with a hamstring injury.
Tonight's tipoff
Bulls vs. Toronto Raptors at the Air Canada Centre, 6 p.m.
TV: Channel 26; Radio: WMVP 1000-AM
Update: Toronto (16-23) won four of five games before dropping both sets of a home-and-home series with Boston on Sunday and Monday. PG Jose Calderon (12.9 ppg, 8.5 apg) missed four games with a hamstring injury, returned to play 22 minutes against the Celtics on Sunday, then sat out again Monday. Whether he'll play against the Bulls is in question. PF Chris Bosh is the Raptors' top scorer at 23.4 ppg.
Next: Cleveland Cavaliers at the United Center on Thursday, 7 p.m.
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