Learning Curve

I'll bow to no one when it comes to my unhealthy man-crush on Derrick Rose, but since I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, honesty compels me to note that he was absolutely MIA defensively on Kidd's game-tying three the other night. Check the tape:



It would be one thing if he'd been doubling down hard and trying to tie up Nowitzki and/or Barea. (It would be stupid with a three-point lead, but at least he'd be involved in the play.) Instead, he is simply watching the play unfold in no-man's-land, completely losing track of his man in the process.

This isn't suggest Rose shouldn't be on the floor at times like this; he MUST be, and VDN's recognition of this is one of the few things he's gotten right this year. But it is to suggest that the Bulls played a pretty nice game overall for 47 minutes and 47 seconds, and that Rose's defensive brain-fart cost them a chance to lock down the W. It really doesn't matter much this year, but in the future, hopefully, it will. And if Rose is ultimately going to become the type of franchise cornerstone that we all hope/believe he can be, he's going to have to eliminate these crunchtime lapses in concentration completely.