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NEW ORLEANS -- As much as he tries to downplay injuries, Derrick Rose's back is still bothering him. Rose played just 22 minutes in Wednesday night's win over the Hornets, scoring six points.

"The back is kind of tight," Rose said after the game. "Thibs did a great job with managing my minutes right when we saw that we had the game put away."

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau knows he's going to have to keep a close eye on Rose for the next couple of days.

"He says he feels pretty good," Thibodeau said. "So he's just got to each day, do his rehab, take care of himself. Get his rest, get his massage, and we go from there."

Thibs inching closer to All-Star berth: With just a couple more wins, Thibodeau will lock up an All-Star berth of his own. He'll be the head coach for the Eastern Conference All-Stars in Orlando at the end of the month.

"I know that that's something that he'd [like] the honor of doing, coaching that game" Rose said. "But if he's coach and I'm on the team, I'd love it."

So would Luol Deng, another potential All-Star.

"It doesn't get any better than that," Deng said. "Whether I'm there or not. First of all, for Derrick to make it ... Derrick making it and getting MVP, you always feel part of it because you're out there with him every night. And now if the coaches get it, you're even more happy because you've got the best record and your coaches are getting recommended, so it just shows what we're doing in here."

Of course, Thibodeau isn't thinking like that.

"Good try," Thibodeau said, cutting off the question. "The challenge for everybody is to stay focused on what's important. That is only our next game. Study, get ready for Charlotte. If you start looking ahead to the break, or you look behind, that's when you're going to have a misstep. So the challenge is to stay focused on the things that are important which is getting ready for Charlotte. And that's it. Don't get side-tracked. And winning takes care of everything. And that's all we have to take care of. Study."

The last word: "We're playing well right now. We're coming out early, defending, running the floor, getting the lead and playing well with it. We just got to keep doing that," -- Deng.

NEW ORLEANS -- Derrick Rose knows that Thursday night's announcement of All-Star reserves probably means more to him than it does to Luol Deng.

Rose, who already earned a starting spot in the game when he was voted in by fans last week, badly wants his teammate to make this year's game in Orlando, Fla. He believes that Deng has done enough to earn a spot this year. Deng is averaging 16 points and seven rebounds a game and he is probably the Bulls' best defender.

"I know that I'd probably be more hurt than Lu [if he doesn't make it], Rose said. "Knowing that he has a nonchalant attitude about making the team. But I think that he deserves it."

So do the rest of Deng's teammates and coaches.

"I hope they're good," Bulls' coach Tom Thibodeau said of Deng's chances. "You guys who follow our team, I think you understand how important he is to our team. Lu doesn't have to score to have a great impact on our team and winning. He plays great defense. He plays a great floor game. He moves without the ball. He makes the extra pass. And he has very good statistics, but you can't measure his impact statistically. I know what he brings. I know all the coaches and all his teammates appreciate everything that he does."

That doesn't mean Thibodeau will go out of his way to get extra votes for Deng. As much as he believes in his forward's cause, he doesn't think recruiting will help much.

"Nah, I know how I am when people do that," Thibodeau said. "I think that doesn't get you very far. These coaches, they know, they look, they study. I think his play speaks for itself. And I think if you value winning, you appreciate all the things that he does."

NEW ORLEANS -- Listening to Tom Thibodeau speak after games this week is like listening to a rickety old juke box that plays the same song on repeat over and over again.

For Thibodeau and his players, the tune continues to sound just fine. Yet again they came out and absolutely dominated a terrible opponent on Wednesday night, crushing the New Orleans Hornets 90-67. Even Thibodeau, ever the perfectionist, is pleased with the way his team is playing. It's not even so much that they continue to win -- it's that the Bulls come out from the jump and just break team's wills.

"We try not to change our approach from game to game," Thibodeau said. "Practice, every practice the same. The challenge is to study, prepare, and when the ball goes up, know your opponent well. And know what you're going to try and get accomplished. I think if you build that habit, then you continually work on it and do the right things every day, the results will take care of themselves."

The Bulls have won the past three games against the Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets and Hornets by a combined 67 points. They've played suffocating defense at various stretches and they have getting clean looks at the basket most of the night.

"We're learning how to play with the lead," Bulls' forward Luol Deng said. "There's times when teams get a run, but we're better at it now than we were last year. There's a lot of times where we played well and we let teams get into it. And there's times when we played bad and played from behind. But I think guys are more comfortable, you're more confident when you come out and play with a lead."

So how have the Bulls, who have coasted at various points in games against bad teams earlier in the year, seemingly turned the corner? The players believe it all comes back to having the right mental approach.

"Staying focused," Bulls' point guard Derrick Rose said. "Knowing that we're on a mission and we can't take any steps back. It takes us playing with a lot of energy in the beginning, getting a comfortable enough lead that if [the starters] are out of the game, the bench can come in and do what they have to do."

As usual, the Bulls' bench gives Thibodeau a weapon most other teams don't have -- depth. Led by Taj Gibson, who had 14 points, the Bulls' reserves combined for 39 points and 19 rebounds. Not to mention the fact that the team's defense is as crisp as it's been all year. For a team that is now 22-6, the thought that the Bulls are actually getting better is a scary one for the rest of the league.

"We're learning," Rose said. "That's something that we had to work on. For the last couple of games, we've been jumping on people. And that's the right way to be."

NEW ORLEANS -- Let's take a quick look at how the Chicago Bulls cruised to a 90-67 win over New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night at New Orleans Arena.

How it happened: Carlos Boozer had 18 points and six rebounds to pace the Bulls. Joakim Noah added 13 points and 10 rebounds as the Bulls rolled to another win against a bad Hornets team. The key for the Bulls once again was that their defense was on point. The Hornets struggled to find open looks all night.

What it means: For the third game in a row, the Bulls blitzed a bad team and didn't give them any chance to get in a game. That's a credit to Tom Thibodeau and his coaching staff for getting his team mentally ready to play. Meanwhile, Derrick Rose's back is clearly still bothering him. He played just 22 minutes and scored just six points. It will be interesting to see whether Thibodeau decides to rest him on Friday night or not.

Stats of the night: The Bulls outscored the Hornets 58-40 in the paint.

What's next: The Bulls continue their nine-game road trip Friday night when they take on the Charlotte Bobcats.

Stacey King has always had something to say and it has usually been funny.

Even when he came to the Bulls, and rookies were seldom seen and even more rarely heard.

Read the full story.

ESPN.com recently named its top 25 NBA players under the age of 25, and a certain Chicago Bulls guard wasn't at the top. Does he belong?

Our panel weighs in on that and whether Richard Hamilton's sore groin is a problem that will linger all season.

Those are two of the topics our panel tackles in 3-on-3.

1. Fact or Fiction: As ESPN.com stated, Kevin Durant is the NBA's top player under 25, ahead of Derrick Rose.

Scoop Jackson: Fact. But not by much. Maybe KD is 1 and Pooh is 1A. The only reason at this point is due to the fact that we've seen Rose has a defensive nemesis: LeBron. In the Eastern Conference finals -- and in the one game that they've faced one another this year -- Rose has allowed LeBron to bring his game down a notch and Rose hasn't figured out how to escape that ... yet. With Durant, that one person or team hasn't stopped him yet. With the exception of his own teammate (Russell Westbrook) there has really been no one player or team that has made life miserable for Durant on the court ... yet. But keep in mind who originated the list: ESPN.com. The same place/site/people that ranked Kobe Bryant No.7 on the current "Best Players" list. I'm just saying.

Jon Greenberg: Fact, but not by much. I feel like I'm cheating on Rose as his hagiographer for answering this honestly. But as the saying goes, you don't trade big for small in the NBA. And with that in mind, you'd probably have to say Durant, a 6-foot-9 small forward, is the top player under 25. But again, not by much. Rose trumps Durant as my "guy I want with the ball with the game on the line," and that doesn't just mean the final shot. After all, Durant needs someone to get him the ball. Hopefully these two will be in the same orbit for the next 10 years.

Nick Friedell: Fiction. They're both great players, but if I had to start a team with just one -- give me Rose. His will to win is unlike anything I've seen before and he makes the players around him better. He wants to be the guy with the ball in his hands late and he wants the pressure on his shoulders that comes with being the face of a franchise, especially one searching for its seventh title. Rose is also going to turn into an even better defender over time because he knows that's the next phase of his game he must conquer.

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2. Fact or Fiction: Pushing his banged-up stars now will cost Tom Thibodeau and the Bulls in the playoffs.

Scoop Jackson:
Fiction. Players need to play. Period. Every team has to push every player. Period. Any team looking for an advantage come playoff time because their “superstars” got more rest during the shortened regular season will be the teams that will be watching the playoffs from the 300 level seats or on flat screens like the rest of us. The only exception to this is Rose. And that’s not because of time on the court, it’s about how much he has to do for this team to win when he’s out there. Every team in the league needs to find its rhythm. So far, that has not happened. That’s why you see some teams beating the Heat one night and losing to the Wizards the next. The Bulls are no different. The “stars” -- again, not including Rose -- will have play through the small bang-ups. They along with Thibs know unless the injury is miss-the-season threatening, there's no time to shut down.

Jon Greenberg: Fiction. I reject the premise. I don't think Thibodeau is really pushing the Bulls, who like every team has dealt with nagging injuries. Yes, Luol Deng played 41 minutes after missing a few weeks, but it's his wrist that's injured, not his knee or ankle. And for all the concern about Rose, he has missed games, so it's not like he's playing through every bump. I side with Thibodeau because he's coaching a team of men. Professionals. They do this for a living. Part of the deal is playing the season like it matters. Muscle memory and all that. The players get their loads lightened with the absence of practice and skipped shoot-arounds. There is no easy way to make it through this season. Just luck.

Nick Friedell: Fact. Everybody around the Bulls trusts Tom Thibodeau, but at some point the extra minutes are going to catch up with his team. It's been well documented how the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen played heavy minutes during the championship years, but the issue with Thibodeau is that unlike most coaches, he doesn't pull his players until the bitter end of games. All it takes is for one injury to torch that line of thinking. The Bulls, especially Rose, were worn down during last season's playoffs. They appear to be on the same path right now unless something changes.

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3. Fact or Fiction: Richard Hamilton's injury problem will prove costly during the postseason.

Scoop Jackson:Fiction (?): The words "reoccurrence" and "re-aggravated" that are being used when anyone mentions Rip's groin and thigh injuries bother me. That's why the question mark, the hesitation, the non-commit. If it were 2002 and Rip had his braids, no face mask and was doing his reincarnation of Reggie Miller curling around screens dropping buckets like C-Listers do names at club entrances, then I wouldn't be concerned. But Rip's not 24 anymore. The recovery time ain't the same, the recoveries themselves are not the same. Which is why those words -- "reoccurrence" and "re-aggravated"-- bother me so. But the optimistic side of me has to out-believe my pessimistic nature on this. I have to (even if forced, even through lies) follow the path of "better to deal with these injuries now than later" when it comes to Rip. Here's the way I look at it: The basketball gods could not be that cruel that they'd let the once best backcourt tandem of this generation (Hamilton and Chauncey Billups) go their separate ways, to teams with championship aspirations, only to have them both watch everything unfold from the bench. I can't believe Billups might not be back for the Clippers, I can't force myself to believe that "DNP due to injury" is how Rip coming here is supposed to end.

Jon Greenberg: Fact. Hamilton is almost unbelievably skinny, none of that mid-30s flab like this writer, and he can still run the break -- he noted when he got to Chicago that he finally had someone who could keep up with him in Rose -- but it looks like he's got too much mileage. I don't feel good about him at all, and why should I? Thibodeau never sells out his players, but he made a pretty telling comment the other day when he noted that Hamilton has missed more games than he's played. I guess all you can do is rest him now, acknowledge he's going to miss more time, and just hope that he's healthy for at least the Eastern Conference finals, if the Bulls get there, that is. When he plays, I think Hamilton really is the missing link the Bulls were looking for. Too bad they got him this season, of all seasons.

Nick Friedell: Fact. Hamilton's groin injury has been lingering all year. Even if he comes back healthy in a week or two, it's going to continue to be an issue. He's going to be 34 years old in a week. Injuries like that (and his thigh bruise) don't just go away with time. They linger. Once Hamilton starts playing 40 minutes again during the postseason, his health is going to be an even bigger factor than usual.

Some may view Derrick Rose's ascension to NBA superstar as following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan, but it's probably more accurate to view Rose as following the path set by another former point guard from Chicago.

Isiah Thomas is the last point guard to be the leading scorer on a team that won the NBA title, and the 6-3 Rose sought out Thomas' advice after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated by the Miami Heat last season.

Thomas likened being a 6-foot-1, 180-pound point guard playing and winning in the NBA to "a salmon swimming upstream and the bears are at the side of the bank." He remembered driving down the lane in his first NBA game as a rookie and getting plucked out of mid-air by then-Milwaukee Bucks 6-11, 250-pound center Bob Lanier.

"The first time I drove through the lane, I went past Quinn Buckner and scored and I was feeling pretty good about myself when Bob Lanier grabbed me out of the air, set me down and said ‘Don't come in here anymore.' My jump shot got pretty good the rest of the night," Thomas told ESPNChicago.com on Wednesday.

But Thomas said he quickly learned that wasn't the path to a title.

"You abandon that thought because you come to the point in your career, and it seems like Derrick did it rather quickly just as I did, when you say, ‘You know what? You may be bigger, faster and stronger than me? But just like you want to win, I want to win too. Either you're going to kick my ass or I'm going to kick yours. So let's fight," he said.

Thomas played through a dislocated toe early in his career and acknowledged, "Derrick is 190 pounds getting hit by guys 240, 250, sometimes bigger and make no mistake, the hits do hurt. You're like Sugar Ray Leonard trying to fight Mike Tyson.

"[My toe] was painful. Anything below the hips for a point guard definitely changes your game and then for small guys, you have to be so fine-tuned that anything of that kind throws off your rhythm in terms of your knees, ankles or feet.

"That that's your advantage. Big guys have height and size as an advantage, so they can get away with a lot of [injuries] we can't. Those injuries are devastating to us because our greatest strength is our speed. But what Derrick has got to transfer from is that now his greatest strength has to become his mind and not necessarily just his physical gifts."

Thomas said he looks at the evolution of the point guard and sees it coming around again.

"When I came into the league, everyone wanted a big point guard like Magic Johnson," he said. "If you looked across the league, there was Magic, Chicago got Reggie Theus, Milwaukee got Paul Pressey, everybody had a 6-8, 6-9 point guard and the small guys like myself were thought to be extinct.

"But I like to say when I came in, everybody wanted a point guard like Magic and when I went out, everyone wanted a point guard like Isiah."

Can the Bulls, however, win an NBA title, as the Pistons did, without an elite big man like Dwight Howard teaming with Rose?

"This is the little man's challenge," Thomas said. "I had to beat Magic and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and if the numbers don't lie, Kareem is the best big man to ever play the game. Then you had to beat [Michael] Jordan and [Scottie] Pippen, and [Larry] Bird, [Kevin] McHale and [Robert] Parrish in the years we won it. I think I was probably the only player who ever won a championship in my era who didn't have a top 50 player on my team.

"So yeah, that's a challenge and [Rose] is swimming upstream. Can he do it? Yeah, he's got to beat LeBron [James], but I had to beat Michael. A lot. Can he beat Kobe? Well, I had to beat Magic. So yeah, you have to do it. Or you can take the easy way out and not accept the challenge. I admire him for taking it. He has to beat Dwight Howard. He and Thibs can be saying ‘We don't have enough,' or ‘I'm too small.' But I'm down with the little guy saying ‘Hey, Charles Barkley, I'm kicking your ass.' "

The encouraging news for Rose is that Thomas says he has "no aches, no pains" at age 50.

"I've got a lot of scars but I've also got the rings," he said. "Had I not won a championship, I would consider my career a total bust, a total failure. I would venture to say if you ask all the point guards in the league that question, Chris Paul probably thinks that way and Derrick thinks that way.

"It's different for small guys. There's no way around it. Either you're going to pay the price, sacrifice and win or you're going to pile up great statistics and you'll never win. And Derrick's choice seems to be he wants to win a championship and I admire him for taking that path because he can have a very long career and play forever, have great numbers and never win. But I have to give Thibodeau a lot of credit for allowing Derrick for taking this courageous path he's choosing to take."

Among those whom Derrick Rose sought advice and solace from in the days after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated by the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals last May was the last point guard to lead his team in scoring while winning an NBA title.

Read the entire story.

NEW ORLEANS -- Actor Will Ferrell will introduce the starting lineups before the Chicago Bulls-New Orleans Hornets game on Wednesday night.

Read the entire story.

NEW ORLEANS -- Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said Wednesday that guard Derrick Rose will be a game-time decision to face the New Orleans Hornets, two days after he had to leave a game with back spasms.

Read the entire story.

We've reached the point of attrition in this physically devastating NBA season where a case of back spasms amounts to little more than rest.

Once again, circumstances force any discussion of the state of the NBA to begin with health, or the lack of it. While the Bulls plot how to treat Derrick Rose's back spasms and win a couple of road games in the meantime, they have to thank the basketball gods they aren't the Los Angeles Clippers, now in despair over the loss of Chauncey Billups for the rest of the season with a torn Achilles, or even the Denver Nuggets, trying to keep their edge the next month or so without Danilo Gallinari.

To that end, you know what the Bulls need a lot of to stay in serious contention between now and the end of June?

Plain old dumb luck.

Read the entire story.

NEWARK, N.J. -- Carlos Boozer scored 24 points, grabbed six rebounds and dished out five assists in the Chicago Bulls' 108-87 win over the New Jersey Nets on Monday night. He also picked up some stitches in his eye after being knocked with an elbow in the second half.

Boozer said he didn't remember exactly who knocked into him, or when it happened, but he had to get "three or four" stitches to close the gash.

"I didn't really see it," he said. "I guess they told me I got hit with an elbow. And I didn't know it was bleeding so much. I wanted to keep playing. I was hoping I was going to get some free throws, but they told me it wouldn't stop bleeding. So we had to come back and get a couple stitches."

Speaking of injuries, Bulls forward Luol Deng said that he is feeling fine after sitting out the past two weeks because of a torn ligament in his wrist.

"It feels great," he said with a smile after playing 34 minutes and scoring 19 points.

Deng says his conditioning hasn't been a problem at all.

"The weird thing is I'm not [winded]," he said. "I'm really not at all. It was my wrist, so I did a lot of running while I was off, but conditioning-wise I'm still there. I might be a little bit [winded], but I'm not feeling it at all. The first game my legs did get heavy, but not so much winded. But it's been fine."

Scal gets more love: Former Net, and perpetual fan favorite, Brian Scalabrine came into the game late in the fourth quarter to raucous applause from the crowd at the Prudential Center. His teammate, Bulls guard Kyle Korver, tried to make sense of all the White Mamba love after the game.

"So there's three incredibly loud cheers every game that you can count on," Korver said. "The first one is when the doughnut races the coffee races the bagel and everyone swears they pick the coffee. The reality is not everyone picked the coffee, but everyone cheers like they picked the coffee. Two is when we score 100 points and everyone gets a free Big Mac or whatever they get. And three is when Scalabrine comes in the game. Guarantee, every single game, the crowd goes nuts no matter where we're at."

Has Korver ever seen anything like it?

"Never," he said. "Tonight, I talked to some people after the game and everyone's in shock that it happened. It's just part of the game now for us. We know in the fourth quarter, if we're winning by five points, we know there's someone out there that's like, 'Put in Scalabrine!' Guys start chanting. He got MVP chants tonight. That's just the way it goes with Scal. He's a big deal.”

Is there any love in the NBA like the love for the White Mamba?

"It is a special love," Korver said with a smile. "That only Brian Scalabrine gets in this league."

NEWARK, N.J. -- Just like his team, Tom Thibodeau didn't even think about slowing down when talking about his favorite part of the Chicago Bulls' 108-87 destruction of the New Jersey Nets on Monday night.

"The start," Thibodeau blurted out. "I thought readiness to play. First quarter -- defensively, offensively it was very good."

For the second game in a row, the Bulls blitzed a bad team and put their foot on the gas. And for the second game in a row, the Bulls rode a hot hand (in this case Luol Deng, who was 5-for-5 from the field for 13 points in the first quarter) and absolutely torched an opponent. After shooting 61 percent in the first half against the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night, the Bulls followed that up by shooting 64 percent from the field against the Nets. If the mark of a good team is not giving bad teams any hope of stealing a win early, the Bulls continue to mature before everyone's eyes.

"We're learning," Bulls point guard Derrick Rose said. "That's a good thing. I think we're finally getting the message that Thibs is telling us in the beginning of games. We're putting teams away. We're not giving them any confidence -- what we always say. Our energy has just been great."

The energy that Rose speaks of seems to be the biggest difference for the Bulls of late. Instead of muddling through the first 12 minutes of the game, as the Bulls have done at various points throughout the year, Thibodeau has gotten his team to tear off like an Olympic sprinter.

"I think we're just coming out with a lot of energy," Bulls forward Luol Deng said. "We're not waiting to pick it up. We're coming out, our defense has been great in the first quarter. We just got to keep doing that, and we're playing very unselfishly on the offensive end."

How unselfishly?

The Bulls had 29 assists on the night. Combine that with the 31 they had against Milwaukee and that gives the Bulls have 60 assists in the past two games. Most teams around the league would be happy to get that in three or four contests. Not the Bulls.

"We want to play like that every day," Deng said. "There's times where you have a lot of energy. Times where you don't have energy. But I think right now, we're not just playing hard. We're also playing smart. And that's the difference."

It's a difference that the players are taking pride in. They enjoy the peace of mind that comes when they've broken a team's will early. They enjoy the fact that the chants for Brian Scalabrine are starting even earlier. Most of all, they enjoy the fact that they are now 21-6 -- owners of the best record in the league.

"I think we're being really aggressive," Bulls guard Kyle Korver said. "We're not easing into games. Guys are attacking. We're getting out on the break. We started off shooting the ball really well. The last couple games we've hit several threes in the first quarter, that just kind of spreads out the defense. And we've got guys that are able to attack ... the floor just seems really, really, spread right now."

NEWARK, N.J. -- Let's take a quick look at how the Chicago Bulls cruised to a 108-87 win over the New Jersey Nets on Monday night at the Prudential Center.

How it happened: Carlos Boozer had 24 points to lead the Bulls to one of their easiest victories of the year. Luol Deng added 19 points, while C.J. Watson chipped in 14 off the bench. The Bulls' victory is even more impressive considering Derrick Rose played just 10:40 on the night and left the game in the second quarter because of back spasms.

What it means: This one was a laugher from the beginning. The Bulls dominated the Nets in every facet of the game. Obviously, the Nets were missing several pieces (Brook Lopez and Anthony Morrow to name two) but the Bulls out-classed them on this night, even without Rose on the floor.

Stat of the night: The Bulls shot 64 percent from the field in the first half.

What's next: The Bulls continue their nine-game road trip Wednesday night when they take on the New Orleans Hornets.