Mere words don’t do Rose justice

Derrick Rose has a few days now to put his feet up, take a 190-pound load off and rest his recovering left ankle.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can search for a few more superlatives to describe the Bulls’ precocious point guard.

To be honest, by the end of this column I’ll be out of stuff to say about Rose. I thought I had enough material on him to last through the playoffs but he exhausted my supply pretty quickly.

Maybe the best thing is to visit the archives and see what we all were saying during Michael Jordan’s years as a Bull because Rose is approaching that level of performance.

You know, the 22-year-old prodigy is persevering through less-than-optimum health the way Jordan did, taking over games when the Bulls need him most the way Jordan did and demonstrating an ability to will his team to victory the way Jordan did.

Rose isn’t Jordan but he’ll do until the next Jordan comes along.

“He’s spectacular,” Pacers’ coach Frank Vogel said of Rose. “I don’t know if anybody has the answer to stopping him. He was too much for us.”

Well, now that those words are taken we’ll have to think of others to describe Rose.

Anyway, remember, Rose was “spectacular” against Indiana on an ankle that he sprained Saturday in Game 4 of the series. After recuperating for three days he drove the Bulls to a 116-89 victory and into the second round of the NBA East playoffs.

Rose was so good for a stretch of five minutes in the third quarter that he was needed for only a half-minute of the fourth quarter.

Suddenly chants of “M! V! P!” didn’t seem sufficient anymore. Just as I’m searching for words, fans are searching for new ways to honor the budding superstar.

Like, after Rose all but eliminated the Pacers in the third quarter, Jesse Jackson saluted him from his baseline seat by waving a bouquet of red roses over his head.

Rahm Emanuel was up from his front-row seat at midcourt and applauding. Jackson walked over from the baseline and handed Chicago’s mayor-elect a flower.

Maybe that’s the next way to honor Rose. Maybe everybody shows up to the United Center with a rose. Or maybe the Bulls hand out a rose to each of the first 20,000 fans to enter the building.

Statistics don’t really tell the Rose story any more than flowers or words can, but some are worth mentioning from when he returned to the game about the time the Pacers rallied to within 61-57 of the Bulls with 6:13 left in the third quarter.

“We just felt it was going the wrong way,” Bulls’ coach Tom Thibodeau said of putting Rose back in despite his foul trouble.

By the end of the quarter the Bulls led 84-65. All Rose contributed to the 23-8 run was 10 points, 2 assists, 1 rebound, 1 steal and 1 block.

That’s not too shabby for a guy who spent three days getting treatment on his ankle and two days not touching a basketball.

“I was just scared,” Rose said of how he felt early in the game. “There really wasn’t any pain. Then everything started going and the crowd got into it.”

Now Rose advances to the the second round of the playoffs against either Atlanta or Orlando.

That gives Rose some time to relax and the us some time to figure out new ways to describe exactly what it is that he does for the Bulls and how spectacularly he does it.

mimrem@dailyherald.com