Derrick Rose was with his Bulls teammates in Brooklyn Saturday night — but not on the court.
After going through his now customary hard workout before the game, Rose sat on the bench in a gray suit and purple tie as one of the team’s two inactive players and watched Chicago get pummeled, 106-89, by the Nets in Game 1 of their first-round series in front of a sellout crowd inside Barclays Center.
The Bulls have gotten used to playing without Rose this season, because he has sat out the season recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee he suffered in Game 1 of Chicago’s first-round loss to the 76ers last spring.
Though Rose has practiced with the team for weeks, there’s still no timetable for if — or when — he will return.
“He’s worked extremely hard,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said before the game. “He wants to be out there very badly, and I know I’ve said it often that he’s close, and he is. But he just can’t quite make that final step. Until he can do that, we’re just going to have to remain patient.“As I’ve mentioned this morning, it’s unlikely he’ll play, but the way the playoffs are structured, maybe a week from now he’ll make that final step, so I never want to rule it out. But nothing’s really changed.”
Thibodeau made it clear that after the Bulls have spent this long patiently waiting for the 2011 MVP to be ready to return, there’s no sense in rushing him back now if he doesn’t think he is ready to play.
“His game is very unique, and the people that are around him every day know that it’s explosion, speed, quickness, change of direction, so many different things,” Thibodeau said. “He has to be able to do that, he has to be able to cut freely, and until he’s real comfortable with that final step, we have to be very careful about putting him out there.
“So, we’ve waited this long, if it means we have to wait another week, two weeks, until next year, so be it. But I just think we have to remain patient.”
* Before his Nets played their first playoff game since he purchased the team in 2010, Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov addressed the sellout crowd inside Barclays Center from center court.
“Hello everyone,” began Prokhorov, dressed all in black in keeping with the team’s “Blackout in Brooklyn” campaign. “I heard there is a blackout here in Brooklyn. … I came to keep the lights on.
“I want to say to our team, let’s keep fighting in the playoffs. And I want to say to every Nets fan, thank you for your passion and for your support this season. This is only the beginning. Thank you.”
* Besides Prokhorov’s appearance, the Nets had another surprise for the fans before the game, as Jerry Stackhouse gave a stirring rendition of the national anthem. He then, however, went out and shot 0-for-3 from the field in 12 minutes, including missing both of his attempts from 3-point range.
“I left it all out there on the national anthem,” Stackhouse said with a big grin afterward. “It felt good. I think the reaction from the guys, and just the excitement of starting the game like that, I think it was good for us.”
So, will he do it again?
“No time soon,” he said, before adding with a smile, “maybe Game 7 of the Finals, or something like that. They’ve been on me to do it a little bit, and I was happy to do it, and I left everything out there on the court. Maybe next time not singing the anthem I might hit the rim.”