Derrick Rose Tears ACL

In case you hadn't heard -- which is pretty much only possible if RwH is your exclusive source for basketball news -- Derrick Rose, Chicago's point guard and last season's MVP, tore his left ACL in the waning moments of the Bulls' Game 1 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. The Bulls were the top overall seed in the playoffs, and so this news affects the entire league, but it has a Boston nexus for two reasons.

First, and most importantly, the Celtics were lined up to the play the Bulls in the second round if they can get by the Hawks in the first round. That potential matchup obviously looks a little different now. The Bulls have had plenty of practice playing without Rose -- this is something like his sixth discrete injury of the season -- and they've done extraordinarily well without him: By my count, they went 18-9 in games in which Rose didn't play, including two wins over the Celtics. But there's a difference between winning regular-season games and winning playoff games. And there's a difference between beating a young, fracturing Philadelphia team in the playoffs, something I still fully expect them to do, and beating an experienced, veteran-laden Boston team (that's peaking at the right time) in the playoffs. It can be done, but it would require guys like C.J. Watson and John Lucas to replicate their excellent regular season performances in the first significant postseason action of their careers. And it means that a guy like Luol Deng, who has already stepped up his game this season, to elevate it yet another level or two. It's just a huge ask. The Celtics' road to the Eastern finals is undoubtedly a bit easier than it was when they woke up on Saturday morning -- as long as they get past Atlanta.

The other Boston connection is that Chicago head coach Tom Thibodeau, Doc's defensive right-hand man during the championship season, is coming under a little bit of fire for the fact that Rose was still on the court with under 90 seconds to go in a 12-point game. Personally, I don't think it's fair to blame Thibs. While it's true that Chicago probably wasn't going to lose that game, it's the playoffs, and in the playoffs, you want to be sure -- and that means keeping your starters in until the other team removes theirs. And Rose hasn't been on the court much lately, so it makes some sense to get him some reps in late-game situations.

I've always been critical of Doc for playing the guys for too long, but that's mainly because of their advanced age. Rose, despite all his injuries, can play major minutes at his age, and arguably needed those minutes to get into playing condition. And this wasn't a physical or chippy game, either, which might have counseled getting Rose out earlier than usual. Indeed, Rose's injury came on a play in which there was absolutely no contact; he drove into the lane and came to one of his patented, violent jump stops. His knee buckled on the landing.

Chicago fans are justifiably angry and disappointed at the misfortune that has befallen them. But the odds of getting injured in any given 90-second period of a basketball game are so slim that it makes little sense to worry about them. I'v heard some people opine that, because Rose's injury was non-contact, it was inevitable; that if it didn't happen in the closing seconds of this game, it was bound to happen soon. I'm not sure there's any medical evidence behind that, but the point is right. If Rose had torn his ACL during practice, or at a shootaround or walkthrough, would Thibodeau be getting the same kind of criticism? I doubt it, and that's the point here: the injury had nothing to do with the situation in which it occurred. It was incident to Rose being a professional basketball player. It's unfortunate, but it's one of those things that happens. Bulls fans may need to blame someone, and Thibodeau is going to be that person. But it's not his fault.

Viewing Alert

Friday: Chicago at Boston, 8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN.

At first glance, the last thing a struggling Celtics team needs right now is a tough home game against the class of the East, coached by a defensive wizard (Tom Thibodeau) who, as a former Doc Rivers assistant, is intimately familiar with what the team does. Boston's had trouble putting the ball in the basket as it is; it's going to be even harder against the Bulls.

Derrick Rose, last year's NBA MVP, missed Wednesday's game against the Wizards with a sprained toe, but I've read that the Bulls are optimistic he'll play against the Celtics. That's bad news for those fans whose sole concern is a Boston win or loss, but it's good news for basketball fans: Rose and Rajon R-ndo tend to bring out the best in each other -- remember their battles in that first-round playoff series in 2008-09, when Rose was a rookie? And Chicago, who can be a little boring to watch even with Rose on the court due to their pace, becomes positively excruciating with their best catalyst on the bench.

The key to the game, if I had to pick just one, will probably be rebounding. Boston has struggled on the glass this year and Chicago, with the energetic Joakim Noah, can definitely cause some problems in that regard. The Bulls also have a good-shooting power forward in Carlos Boozer, the kind of player the Celtics have struggled to guard in recent years (because he keeps Kevin Garnett occupied).

Here's to stopping the bleeding...

The Next Lamb: The Chicago Bulls

Game 19: Chicago (9-7) at Boston (14-4)

Friday, December 3

8 p.m. Eastern

TV: ESPN

Last meeting: @Boston 110, Chicago 105 (OT) (11/6/2010)

Last time we played Chicago, we blew a 16-point lead, sweated out a potential game-winning possession for the Bulls at the end of regulation, and then won in overtime.

The big difference between the Bulls team we'll see Friday night and the one we saw last month is that power forward Carlos Boozer, Chicago's big offseason acquisition from Utah, will be in the lineup. Boozer broke his hand before the season and returned to game action on Wednesday, logging five points in 22 minutes in a 107-78 throttling by Orlando. While Boozer is a good player, it's safe to assume he won't have found his groove by Friday, given that he's just now returning from injury and is playing with a new team. Moreover, Taj Gibson, who started in Boozer's absence, had a very strong game against Boston the first time around, so the Celtics might not be too upset to see Boozer back in the lineup. His return does give a boost to the bench (since Gibson has moved back to the second unit), which was pretty non-existent in the first meeting between the two teams.

Last time out, Boston held Derrick Rose and Luol Deng more or less in check -- each shot 8-for-19 from the field -- but gave up 26 points to center Joakim Noah. Jermaine O'Neal played that night and Shaquille O'Neal didn't, and the reverse will be true on Friday; JON's out, Shaq's in. What effect this will have on Noah's production, I'm not sure. I seem to recall Noah getting a fair number of points with his screwball jumper, and I doubt very much that Shaq is going to bother Noah 15 feet from the basket. Shaq's size, however, should be able to keep Noah off the boards a bit better than Jermaine could. (Odd stat of the day: Noah was held without a rebound in last night's loss to the Magic).

Chicago had been playing well before Wednesday night, and I wouldn't be surprised to see coach Tom Thibodeau pull Boozer early if he's ineffective, delaying Boozer's integration into the team by a game for a chance to beat the defending conference champions (and his old team) in their barn. Chicago always plays us tough, and Thibodeau knows a lot of what we do, so this should be a good game.

The Next Lamb: The Chicago Bulls

Game 6: Chicago (2-2) at Boston (4-1)

Friday, November 5

8 p.m. (Eastern)

ESPN

The Bulls have had an up-and-down start to the season. Indeed, in just four games, they've been down, then up, then down again. It started with a loss to Oklahoma City in the opener, no shame there, but continued well into the next game against Detroit. Chicago gave up 63 first-half points in that game, before turning things around with 34-9 fourth quarter that resulted in a ten-point win. That strong play carried over into their third game, a convincing home win against Portland.

Then came their fourth game, Thursday night in Chicago against the Knicks. Like they did against the Pistons, the Bulls had a terrible first half, allowing 70 points. This time around, however, they didn't improve enough in the second half to overcome the bad start, losing 120-112. The Bulls were down quite a bit more than that, and star point guard Derrick Rose sat the final 9:30 for what his coach said were performance-based reasons.

So, yeah, it's a little hard to tell what we're going to get out of Chicago. However, we do know that there are players to watch and storylines to follow that go beyond Brian Scalabrine's return to the TD Banknorth Garden:

Derrick Rose - Rose's short career has fascinated me. He had a solid, though unspectacular rookie season -- until the playoffs, when he scored 36 points in his postseason debut. He didn't quite keep up that pace during a truly epic seven-game series, but he did boost his scoring average by about three points from the regular season. It appeared that he had done what he did in his lone year in college, at Memphis: Defer to his teammates during the regular season, then turn it on during the postseason.

I expected a huge season from him in 2009-10, and I wasn't alone. My reasoning was that the departure of Ben Gordon would force Rose to take on a more assertive role on offense. "Once Rose figures out how good he is, he'll be unstoppable" I could be heard to say.

Rose did make a statistical jump last year, averaging four more points than he did in his rookie season (not surprising, given Gordon's absence) while improving his shooting percentage (which was already very good for a point guard who takes as many shots as he does). But that jump wasn't the leap I wasn't expecting, and the Bulls -- while they won 41 games and made the playoffs -- were something of a disappointment.

Perhaps this is the year that Rose learns just how good he is, and makes that leap. Through four games, he's averaging 26.8 points, four rebounds, and ten assists. What's particularly interesting is how quickly Rose has adapted to new coach Tom Thibodeau's offense. Rose came out of the starting blocks firing, putting up 31 shots against Oklahoma City in the opener and 27 against Detroit the next time out. He wasn't necessarily playing selfishly -- he had 13 total assists in the two contests -- but it's been suggested that the shots he took in those games were simply the shots that presented themselves. Rose's shot totals have gone down in the last two games, however, and he's set career highs in assists in consecutive games.

Boston will definitely have its hands full with Rose, but Rose will also have to deal with Rajon Rondo -- a matchup that has often gone in Boston's favor. Rondo actually outplayed Rose during the latter's breakout postseason, posting the following lines over the seven games of the series: 29/9/7, 19/12/16, 20/11/6, 25/11/11, 28/8/11, 8/9/19, and 7/5/11. That was all Tom Thibodeau -- Boston's defensive guru in previous seasons -- took over in Chicago, though the Bulls have struggled defensively this year, often with point guards. (More on Thibs below.)

Luol Deng: I've never been much of a Deng fan, but when a guy scores 40 points in a game, as Deng did last Saturday against the Blazers, you have to mention him. Deng's rarely been successful against the Celtics over the last couple of seasons, because he's been exactly the type of player the Boston defense is geared to stop: A slasher, without a great three-point shot, who is willing to take mid-range jumpers (which he hits at about a league-average rate). The Celtics thrive on letting these guys settle for jumpers, confident that they'll eventually miss enough of them to give Boston the game.

Deng's three-point range appears to be improving, however, and this may be the year we really see the fruits of that. In his first two years, Deng shot a bunch of threes and made them at a horrific rate. Over the next three years, Deng all but eliminated the three-point shot from his arsenal, attempting one every four games or so, on average. Last season, however, Deng shot 83 triples in 70 games, making 32 -- one more make than his rookie year, on 34 fewer attempts.

This year, Deng is 7-for-14 from behind the arc. The makes suggest his stroke has improved, but the attempts suggest a change in philosophy, one that can probably be attributed in part to Thibodeau.

Tom Thibodeau: Speaking of Thibodeau, it's going to be very interesting to see him coach against the team he was so intimately involved with over three great seasons. His new team is clearly having problems defensively, and I haven't watched the Bulls, so I can't say whether it's due to his players not having grasped the system, or them simply not being good enough. But Thibodeau knows the Celtics' offensive tendencies as well as anyone, and as far as the Bulls offense goes, he'll esesentially be scheming against himself. Should be interesting to watch.

Atlanta 102, Boston 96

I try not to get too worked up about specific regular season games, but goddamn, did I want to win this one.

[recap] [box score]

After Sunday's 114-107 win over the Raptors in Toronto, the Celtics returned home on Monday for a rematch with the the Hawks. Atlanta had Sunday off, but on Saturday had buoyed my theory that they save something extra for the Cs; fresh off the win over Boston on Friday, they went down to Orlando and got clobbered by the Vince Carter-less Magic. Despite the back-to-back and despite being without Kevin Garnett and his backup, Rasheed Wallace -- who apparently hurt his foot on his way to a season-high 29 points against the Raps -- everything was going smoothly for the Celtics in the middle of the third quarter. Rajon Rondo was attacking, Atlanta's post players were struggling, and Boston had put the clamps on Friday's foil, Jamal Crawford. The Cs were up 67-57 and shooting an ungodly percentage.

And then, with one questionable -- but not unprecedently bad -- flagrant foul call, everyone with leadership responsibilities lost their cool to varying degrees, and the tenor of the game changed.

The call in question came on a Marvin Williams breakaway. Glen Davis chased Williams down. I'm pretty sure all the contact came from Davis' body, but he did get his left arm up in Williams' neck/head area, although, like I said, I'm pretty sure it merely appeared as though Davis collared Williams. Two officials whistled a foul, huddled for a few seconds, then called Big Baby for a Flagrant 1.

Doc Rivers blew his top and was almost instantly hit with two technical fouls and an ejection. (It seemed like a quick trigger on the part of the official, but then again, I don't know what Doc said.) As Doc was leaving the floor, assistant coach Armond Hill was also given a tech. Crawford and Williams combined to make four of five free throws, and it was a brand new ballgame.

It may be that I'm overstating the effect of the call (no doubt because Tommy Heinsohn kept mentioning it). Boston didn't crumble immediately; in fact, it looked like they may have been sparked by the turn of events. Atlanta got the ball back after all the free throws, but Kendrick Perkins swatted Crawford's layup attempt off the backboard, sparking a Rondo drive that resulted in his 21st and 22nd points of the game. The Hawks went on a 14-6 run to tie the score, but the Celtics scored nine of the next 11 points to regain a seven-point advantage early in the fourth quarter.

So the call and the technicals and the ejection didn't cost us the game in the sense that they changed the momentum or anything like that. But -- ironically, since I'm always giving him a hard time -- losing Doc Rivers very well might have.

With Doc in the locker room, head coaching duties for the evening fell to Tom Thibodeau. The defensive guru has been an invaluable asset during the last two-plus seasons for Boston, and he's high on the list of NBA assistants who will be getting offers for head positions in short order. But if Monday night was an audition, Thibodeau bombed.

Doc was tossed right around the midway point of the third quarter. From that point forward, for the final 18 minutes, 16 seconds of the game, Thibodeau did not make a single substitution. Never mind that it was the second night of a back-to-back; that Rondo and Ray Allen had played 44 and 42 minutes, respectively, the previous day; that Glen Davis is still getting into playing "shape," if you can call it that; that Pierce was playing in his fourth game after missing five with an injury; that (gasp!) Tony Allen played fairly well in Pierce's absence; or that Brian Scalabrine -- starting in place of Garnett and Wallace -- nailed three triples in the first half while basically shutting down Josh Smith. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Davis, and Kendrick Perkins were the five on the floor when Thibodeau took over, and they never left. We were gassed.

Thibodeau doesn't deserve all the blame. Rondo made a couple of poor decisions trying to force things, then basically stopped being aggressive after having so much success going to the bucket in the first two-and-a-half quarters. Davis provided some big baskets offensively, but his defense predictably left a lot to be desired. Late in the game, the team seemed preoccupied with dumping the ball into Kendrick Perkins in the post -- a curious decision, especially given all the mismatches on the court. Perk's been traveling a lot these days, it seems, and Monday was no exception. Additionally, Atlanta was doubling Perk a lot, and the big fella sprinkled in a number of bad passes due to holding on to the ball too long.

We get one more shot at the Hawks in the regular season, on the 29th in Atlanta, one night after a battle in Orlando with the Magic.