The Chicago Bulls are trying to get more players recovered from injury as they prepare for their next game.
Check out the latest buzz below.
Rose Did Note Re-Injure Himself
Derrick Rose played just 10 minutes on Tuesday night but he and coach Tom Thibodeau say that he wasn’t reinjured.
“It wasn’t nothing like I’m limping or I pulled it or anything, it wasn’t any of that,” Rose told ESPN.
“It was just that I wasn’t moving the way I wanted to while I was on the floor. So why push through it when I wasn’t able to affect the game the way I wanted to? I came in here and talked to (Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau) and we both agreed on just sitting out.”
“They’ll re-examine him but there was really nothing that happened other than I didn’t want to take any chances with him,” Thibodeau added.
“The way the game was going, the way we were going, I just felt at that point I wanted to go a different way. He didn’t re-injure himself or anything like that.”
Rose has already missed eight of the Bulls’ 15 games this season, and ESPN’s Nick Friedell noted that he has not started and finished two consecutive games yet this season.
On the other hand, ESPN analyst Stephen Smith believes Rose is lying.
“I watched the video and I watched how he jumped up and how he’s feeling, I don’t think it’s just a phsycological thing. I think Derrick Rose is lying. I think other people within the Bulls organization are lying. I think that there’s something that’s going on. It’s not a tweak here or there.”
Smith said that Rose shouldn’t of played over the summer for USA Basketball.
Rose, meanwhile, says that he wants to try to play on Friday. “I’m just trying to be smart. Back-to-back … got fatigued and I didn’t want to take any steps back. So take these couple of days off, head to Boston, give it a go in Boston,” he told the Chicago Tribune. Joakim Noah is still day-to-day and could play.
Thibodeau Praises Butler
Jimmy Butler has been solid all season for the Bulls, and the coach took some time to praise him this week.
“He’s been incredible,” Thibodeau told ESPN after the Bulls were defeated by the Nuggets in Denver, 114-109.
“He’s a star, and he does it on both ends of the floor. He’s just an amazing player. We’ve had him play the point, we’ve had him play the 2, the 3, and tonight he played the 4. And he hasn’t had any opportunity to practice the 4. So he just got out there, he’s smart, he’s tough, he does whatever the team needs, and he found a way to help lead us into coming back and having a shot at the end.”
Butler declined to sign an extension with the Bulls, making him a restricted free agent in the summer, but he says he wants to stay with the organization.
Butler has often played the most minutes on the team over this season and the last, as the Bulls are relatively thin at shooting guard. Kirk Hinrich sometimes plays off the ball, but usually not when Rose doesn’t play. Plus, Hinrich is hurt himself right now.
Butler is averaging 21.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.2 assists in 39.2 minutes per game so far this season.
Apparently Butler underwent some intense training over the offesason, which likely has led to his better play.
Butler revealed to Sports Illustrated that Butler and some friends rented a house in Houston over the offseason and he wanted to make sure there were no distractions.
“I wanted to be so good at the game that we didn’t have cable, we didn’t have the Internet,” Butler said.
“Whenever we got bored, all we would do is go to the gym. We’d eat, sleep and go to the gym. We’d go three times a day because we didn’t have anything else to do. We were sitting on the couch, looking at each other, saying, ‘What the hell are we going to do all day?'”
Blackout of Bulls Games Looming
Dish subscribers may not be able to watch Bulls games very much longer.
“Comcast SportsNet Chicago, which is carrying the game, is perhaps days from being blacked out by the satellite provider in a dispute over license fees,” the Tribune reported.
“The current agreement expires Monday and Dish Network is balking at an increase demanded by CSN.”
The Blackhawks, White Sox, and Cubs games are also at stake.
Fish has more than 342,000 subscribers in the Chicago area.
