ROSE WON’T REST
Carmelo sits out rare Anthony-less win
Porzingis remained at center for the second straight game, while Lance Thomas started at power forward and Courtney Lee shifted to small forward. Derrick Rose and Ron Baker started in the backcourt.
Rose was taken aback by the question. Maybe a little confused.
After so many years of facing criticism about not playing with the Bulls, he was asked Monday if he’ll ever take a game off down the stretch to rest. It is, after all, the Dog Days of this disappointing season, and Rose is on pace to play in more games than during any of the previous five.
“It’s dope that you asked that. In Chicago it’s different. It’s the first time I ever got asked that. It’s something I’ve never thought about,” Rose said. “I wish I could play in all 82. The games I missed, I was really injured instead of being hurt. I remember (former Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau) a long time ago used to tell me if you’re hurt you can go out there and play but if you’re injured you probably have to sit down. I took that philosophy and I added it to my repertoire of how I’m going into games and how my body feels and letting that be the scale to how good I feel that day, if I want to go or I want to sit.”
Of course, the quote seemed hypocritical from Rose since he went AWOL for a game this season and was fined for it. So maybe his credibility is shot in that department. But he did fight through a scare in Wednesday’s loss to the Warriors, when he was accidentally elbowed in the face by teammate Kristaps Porzingis. It was in the same area Rose suffered an orbital fracture last season, and he was bothered despite scoring 28 points in 35 minutes.
“The noise, the crowd, the lights were getting to me a little bit. But I got through it. And I just wanted to play in that game,” he said.
Following the game, Rose said he was consulted and cleared by a doctor.
“Iced it the entire night. During the game I was icing it. So that when you have surgery or eye surgery, you have certain spots where it’s hard to look,” he said. “Like my hard spots are looking down. It’s blurry so whenever I read or whenever I’m doing something, I got to make sure, I’m reading my book up, or dribbling, I’m used to dribbling the ball my whole life. But you have blurry spots along the way of it actually healing.”