Westerlund: 5 Thoughts After Bulls-T'Wolves
By Cody Westerlund-
CHICAGO (CBS) – After getting positive news early in the day that point guard Derrick Rose is expected to return this season following knee surgery, the Bulls capped Friday off with a don't-worry-about-style 96-89 win over the lowly Timberwolves, making the plays they needed down the stretch after trailing by one with five minutes left.
Here are the observations and notes of the night.
1. Jimmy Butler has maintained that in Rose's absence, it must be a team effort to fill the void. He's right in that, but offensively, it's also on him to play the leading role. The All-Star did so Friday, scoring a game-high 28 points on 11-of-19 shooting.
Late in the game, the Bulls used Butler at point guard and let him initiate the offense. It worked well, as they closed strong and got quality looks late, including a driving, banking jumper of Butler's over the outstretched arms of Nikola Pekovic and Andrew Wiggins.
Among other tasks, it will now fall on Butler to be the go-to guy late in the shot clock as well.
"His playmaking," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said of what stood out. "It's not only when he scores but his ability to read a defense, to read a double team, to make a play to create easy offense. That's what a primary scorer does. He has that responsibility."
2. With Rose out, scoring easy points will be Chicago's biggest challenge. For all his uneven play, Rose has done a quality job all season of getting into transition when the opportunity presents itself. He's also the Bulls' best open court passer.
In that regard, the Bulls have already felt his absence; they scored just five fastbreak points against the Hornets on Wednesday and had just four against the T'Wolves on Friday.
Finding a some easier points is a concern moving forward in the next four to six weeks that Rose is expected to miss, as these Bulls haven't displayed the same consistent defensive intensity to make up for lulls offensively. These recent struggles have come against two poor teams too, in the Hornets and Timberwolves.
As promising as the Rose news is, Bulls fans also need to brace themselves for some grind-it-out/ugly basketball until April. Call it the Thibodeau way, if you want.
3. Taj Gibson left in the first quarter with a left ankle sprain and didn't return. It's the same ankle that's nagged him previously, including a nasty sprain in November in Portland, after which he missed six games.
Gibson will be evaluated Saturday, and as of now, an MRI isn't planned, Thibodeau said. But the postgame sight of Gibson in the locker room didn't instill much confidence – he was hopping around on his right foot, putting no weight at all on his left side, as he went back for treatment.
In better news, Mike Dunleavy no longer has a minutes restriction, and the extended action helped him get a rhythm Friday. Dunleavy had 21 points, including a 5-of-8 showing from 3-point range. He played 32 minutes, the most he's played since returning Feb. 10 from a jammed right foot that cost him 19 games.
With the Bulls short-handed, Dunleavy closed the game at power forward for the Bulls.
4. With Gibson out and Pau Gasol also missing the game with an illness, Joakim Noah took on a role he played for much of 2013-'14: the fulcrum of the offense from the high post. Noah finished with 11 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists, hitting teammates on backdoor cuts on a variety of occasions.
Noah fulfilling that role was a response to Minnesota's defense, not the plan, though it came after Chicago had worked on some old sets knowing that Rose will be out.
"Well, I don't know what we were doing," Thibodeau said when asked about it, drawing laughs.
"We know we're going to be short-handed. There are different plays that we go to in those situations, and we just started working on those again. It's not the plays. It's the players."
Noah played 38 minutes, a season-high for a game that didn't go to overtime. The Bulls needed every last effort of his too, as he was crucial in limiting Timberwolves big man/granite rock Nikola Pekovic to just 12 points.
5. Chalk this up into the staggering statistic category for the Bulls: Now 59 games into the season, they've used 27 different closing lineups (by my charted-albeit-unofficial count).
While that number might not be surprising for a young or rebuilding team, it is for a squad with championship aspirations that needs continuity and trust. That's the toll injuries have taken – often, whoever's a rotation member, healthy and playing fine just gets the call, because able bodies are few and far between.
It's made some of the harder decisions that Thibodeau faces a non-factor, but ideally, he wants to have a set group to close games.
On Friday, the Bulls closed with Noah, Dunleavy, Butler, Tony Snell and Kirk Hinrich. It was the first time they'd played together down the stretch.
"If you could, you'd like to close with the same group, but that's just not our reality," Thibodeau said. "I thought our guys did a good job of that, playing to each other's strengths. Whoever we have out there, just get the job done. We have a long way to go."
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for CBSChicago.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
