Chicago Bulls Beat San Antonio Spurs On Derrick Rose’s 42 Points

February 17th, 2011 by Kelly Scaletta Leave a reply »

When Derrick Rose says this game means something in the future, opposing teams might want to pay attention. In fact, they might want to pay Tonya Harding’s ex-husband. He chose the last game before the All-Star break, and the game against the league’s best team, the San Antonio Spurs to score a career-high 42 points and lead the Bulls to a 109-99 victory. 

The Bulls started off the season 9-8. They didn’t have starting power forward and key offseason acquisition Carlos Boozer for the first 15 games, and his first two back were a struggle as he had to shoe horn spring training and 15 games of learning into only one practice. 

Since then, they’ve gone 29-8, including 10-2 against teams with winning records and had won each of the top seven teams (apart from themselves) without a loss. Yet still they’ve not been considered as an “elite” team in the NBA.

It was a reason that Derrick Rose and company wanted a win against the Spurs tonight. It was an opportune time as it was a TNT matchup, the only game being played and the featured event of the night. It seemed like a good time to have the best game of his young career. 

Rose dropped 42 points on the NBA’s best team, and did so on only 28 shot attempts for those who are questioning his efficiency. He added eight assists, five rebounds and only one turnover. It’s even more impressive when he scored his points though; 10 came in the final 4:37 of the first half, and another 13 in the final 7:13 of the game.

It was the type of performance you expect from an MVP candidate. Big time players make big time plays and prime time players play prime time games. You almost expected him to start busting out with Glee-type performance of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” 

Other Bulls certainly pitched in. Luol Deng scored 19 points, and hit a big three-pointer in the third quarter that stopped a Spurs run that had put them to within two, and they never got within five again. Keith Bogans maintained his recent propensity for actually making three-point shots.

Carlos Boozer added 15 and grabbed six boards. Kurt Thomas had nine rebounds. The bench played well too. While the Spurs bench won the battle in the second quarter, the Bulls bench won the battle in the more important fourth quarter. Both teams got 25 from the pine.

It was an impressive performance by the Bulls. As the Bulls head into the All-Star break, they trail the co-leaders of the conference Miami and Boston by a mere two games, and having the best record since Jan. 8. It really makes you wonder how good they’re going to be when Joakim Noah makes his return after the break. Certainly it should be enough to allow them entrance into that “elite” category of teams. 

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