The Bulls' Second Quarter: Everything's coming up Rose's

For a team that's been at full strength for just nine games thus far this year, the Bulls have still looked pretty impressive when a lot of excuses could have been being concocted. Instead, I continue to be thankful that Tom Thibodeau's coaching this team and you needn't look very hard to see what effect he's had on this squad, as when it's on, the defense can be among the league's best.

Joakim Noah hasn't played since shortly after I posted the last quarterly update—and now he might not be back until March. Carlos Boozer finally did start in December, but just missed the Memphis game the other night. And still, despite problems with two big pieces being banged up, the Bulls keep on winning.

Looking over this last stretch of 20 games, the list of opponents doesn't seem quite that daunting, but who's really going to argue with the results? The only team with a bigger lead in their division is the Lakers, and while the Central might not field any more playoff teams other than the Bulls, it's certainly looking like Chicago will have home-court advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs.

RECORD FOR THE QUARTER: 15-5 (28-13 OVERALL) — Again, this was a pretty weak stretch of the schedule in terms of records of the opponents. Actually, since the win over the Lakers on Dec. 10 that marked the end of the first quarter of the season, the Bulls played only three teams with winning records. Still, when you consider the injuries, the team's winning most of the games they need to.

BEST WIN: January 15 (Bulls 99, Heat 96) — Tough call for me as the win over the Celtics a week before this game was a real testament to the Bulls' defense in holding Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to one shot attempt combined between the two stars in the fourth quarter. But that was also admittedly a pretty ugly game to watch whereas this one might have been the most fun game to watch thus far this season—even despite LeBron sitting out and Chris Bosh leaving with an injury after the third quarter. That would have made it a little more concerning had Chicago not been able to get the win with Miami being down those two, but instead the feeling afterward was something more along the lines of euphoric. While it was Kyle Korver canning the game-winning three-pointer, the game was essentially a showcase of Derrick Rose against Dwayne Wade. In the end, it was Rose with 34 points, eight assists and three blocks to Wade's 33 points, four assists and five blocks. Miami actually took a 53-48 lead into the half, but the Bulls came out blazing in the third quarter with a 17-0 run. So sure, there were some big names absent from this one, but damned if the taste of Wade vs. Rose we got in this one doesn't seem like it would make for must-see television in the playoffs.

WORST LOSS: January 5 (Nets 96, Bulls 94) — The starters were really phoning it in this game, thus leading to Thibs benching Carlos Boozer for the entire fourth quarter. That, of course, led to some speculation about the relationship between the Bulls' biggest off-season free agent acquisition and their new head coach, although fortunately the rift came and went without too much drama. It was indeed the bench that kept Chicago in the game, and while Derrick Rose might have helped keep the game close in the fourth quarter, he also allowed Devin Harris to take over on the other end of the court at the same time. The Bulls lost another stinker a couple nights later to the 76ers that was also being considered for this category, but the loss in New Jersey seemed to sting a bit more since it was one that Chicago had managed to creep back into despite the seemingly lackadaisical effort, only to watch Sasha Vujacic break the tie and win the game with 5.3 seconds left.

MVP: Derrick Rose — Just as I had suspected last quarter, there's no point in pretending that anybody else on this team has meant more. Yesterday, Rose got the first triple-double of his career on Martin Luther King Day matinee against the Grizzlies. I wanted to get a better still shot of his amazingly emphatic alley-oop against the Pistons for the graphic this quarter, but no such luck. Still, 41 games into this NBA season, Rose is leading the team in scoring (24.5 points per game) and assists (8.1 points per game), and has even surged ahead of Rajon Rondo in the All-Star voting. The bottom line remains that with either Boozer or Noah (if not both) spending time watching the game from the bench, it's been Rose who has constantly taken the team on his back and carried to victory in numerous games this season. Like many others on the team, his defense has improved this season and he deserves a good chunk of the credit for why the Bulls won 15 of the 20 games they played in this last quarter of the season—as well as 18 of their last 23. Again, the injuries to the bigger names could make for excuses on lesser teams, but fortunately for the Bulls, it's only allowed Derrick Rose more opportunities to prove himself as the real deal.

LVP: Keith Bogans — And if the story remains the same for which guy's most valuable, there's no denying it's the same story for who's least valuable right now. It's almost enough to make feel bad for Bogans—but not entirely. I mean, even Brian Scalabrine offers something in his limited role from the bench. But this is becoming the running source of contention among Bulls fans as many still wonder how Keith Bogans has managed to start all 41 games thus far this year. It leads to a discussion about trading for another shooting guard when neither Ronnie Brewer nor Kyle Korver has been given an opportunity to start yet. And just as I said last quarter, sure, both of those options have their deficiency at one end of the court or the other, but it's still just hard to watch Bogans start every game and just feel as though he never makes any shots or always turns the ball over. No, that's not entirely true, obviously, but I'll leave you with this one statistic that to me justified why I'm nominating Bogans for this spot again: it's the Player Efficiency Rating (PER). Derrick Rose leads the team with a 23.0 and most everybody on the team has a double-digit PER, only exceptions being James Johnson (9.4) and even the aforementioned Scalabrine (8.0). But Keith Bogans? He's a team-worst 7.2—unless you count John Lucas' 0.1. Of course, he got waived after two games.

THREE THINGS I'VE LIKED SO FAR:

1. DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE — The Bulls have held their opponents to a 42.7 field goal percentage this year, the lowest in the league. Keep it up.
2. THE CENTRAL'S BASICALLY WRAPPED UP — When the six-games-under-.500 Pacers are the closest competition in your division, a top three spot sure looks good.
3. OVERCOMING THE INJURIES — No Noah or no Boozer has basically been no problem this year.

THINGS I HAVEN'T:

1. WILL THEY EVER BE AT FULL STRENGTH? — Of course, despite the success without some of the bigger names, if the end goal is still to win the NBA Championship, it's frustrating not to be able to see all your ideal starters playing together.
2. STRUGGLING FROM THE CHARITY STRIPE — The Bulls are currently shooting 71.7 percent from the free-throw line, third worst in the league. That sort of thing can be a killer in the playoffs.
3. THIS BOGANS THING IS GETTING OLD — Seriously.

25 WORDS OR LESS:

The team's only getting more deserving of being considered among the league's upper tier of clubs.