Bulls' Rose looking forward to all-star weekend

After posting an eye-opening 42-point performance against San Antonio on Thursday, Derrick Rose left immediately for Los Angeles and a busy all-star weekend.

He went through several appearances Friday. Tonight, he'll participate in the Skills Challenge, then start for the East all-stars Sunday at the Staples Center.

“It's for the fans,” Rose said. “It should be exciting. It should be fun. I can't wait to get out there.”

As much as reporters wanted to ask about his 42-point game and all-star appearance, Rose kept turning the focus back to the team on Thursday.

“We've got a lot of confidence right now, knowing we can beat some of the best teams in the NBA,” he said. “We've just got to keep it going. We've got to stay focused. We've got to keep working even harder. We've still got to go try to win a championship.”

The other current Bulls player who will be part of all-star weekend is Taj Gibson. He played for the sophomore squad in Friday's rookie challenge game. Tonight he'll join ex-Bulls guard Steve Kerr and Sky forward Cathrine Kraayeveld on Team Chicago in the shooting stars contest.

Noah ready to come back:

The Bulls have good reason to look beyond the all-star break. Center Joakim Noah is expected to return Wednesday at Toronto after missing 30 games with a torn ligament in his right thumb.

A day later, the Bulls host the Miami Heat with a chance to clinch the season series.

“Jo's done an unbelievable job doing everything humanly possible to give himself the best chance to get back as quick as possible and also to play well,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “The challenge for us is when he comes back, to get everyone on the same page and comfortable playing together again.”

Rose expects to turn up the Bulls' fastbreak game when Noah returns.

“We're not a fastbreak team right now because Kurt (Thomas) is kind of old (38),” Rose said with a laugh. “We've got to walk the ball up some. When Jo comes back, he's going to speed the game up and give us a lot of energy out there.”

Duncan's numbers drop:

San Antonio's Gregg Popovich talked about how Tim Duncan took on a diminished role with the Spurs this season. He's averaging 13.4 points and 9.2 rebounds in 28.7 minutes, all career lows.

“Whatever it is, it's come naturally, through no speeches or meetings with Tim or anything else,” Popovich said Thursday. “It's just what's developed, the way we ran our offense in the preseason and training camp and what we wanted to instill this year. So we've had a quicker pace, scored more points.

“The ball is in Tony (Parker) and Manu (Ginobili's) hands a little bit more than in the past. The bench is better equipped to run. Adding Gary Neal has helped us. The system is just a little bit different this year. The emphasis has been different than in the past.”

Duncan had 14 points and 9 rebounds in the 109-99 loss to the Bulls.