As losses pile up, Rose not looking to score more

Here's the latest sign of how far the Bulls have slipped: Tuesday's game between the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers and blowout-prone Bulls lost the fan vote to be shown nationwide on NBA TV.

The winner? New Jersey at Cleveland drew more support than Lakers-Bulls at the United Center, and the Lakers rarely lose an NBA TV fan vote.

Of course, the game will still be played. While the Bulls have dropped 10 of their last 12 games, with eight of the losses by at least 14 points, they can take some comfort in knowing that all of those blowouts happened either on the road or in the second leg of back-to-back games.

Neither of those characteristics apply Tuesday night, so the Bulls should have no excuses when it comes to playing a competitive game.

Derrick Rose shared his pain following Monday's practice at the Berto Center.

"It's really unbearable that we're losing all these games," he said. "We owe that to our fans to go out there and play hard every game. We're not doing that."

Injuries have been an excuse during much of the Bulls' slump, but now Tyrus Thomas is the only player unavailable. Guard Kirk Hinrich sat out most of practice with a variety of ailments, but looked good shooting the ball after practice was over and is expected to play against the Lakers.

"It's got to be mental," Rose said. "You couldn't tell us in the beginning of the year that we weren't going to compete with some of the best teams in the NBA, and now almost every game we're getting blown out. Everybody's just got to get on the right track, and I think we'll be fine."

One topic of discussion after Monday's practice was Rose's offensive role. With things going badly - and the Bulls averaging just 90.4 points per game - should he take it upon himself to do more scoring?

He's done that at times recently. Rose is averaging 16.1 points overall this season, 17.8 points in the last five games. There is only so much he can do with opponents sagging to stop his drives and the Bulls shooting less than 30 percent from 3-point range.

"People are saying they want me to shoot more, but I'm the point guard, I can't do that," Rose said. "I've got to pass the ball to people and get them open. So taking over as a point guard is getting people open and shooting it here and there. If I was the two guard, it would be something else. That's just not my game right now."

Asked the same question, coach Vinny Del Negro went through the usual analysis of how he wants Rose to be aggressive, but also set up his teammates.

"He's done a much better job since he's been healthy the last 10 or 12 games," Del Negro said. "He'll continue to develop and understand when he needs to get guys shots and also when he needs to take over games. There are other areas Derrick will continue to improve in that are probably more important than that."