Quick Thoughts- Rose: All Star Again

"It means a lot. I remember not being in the All-Star game. Wanting to be in the game is something you should take to heart. I want to accomplish something in this league. One of those is being on the All-Star team. It’s an honor. It means a lot for my fans to vote for me. I didn’t realize I had all those votes. I’m appreciative. I don’t take any one of my fans that went online and voted for me for granted. I appreciate them all. I hope they continue to watch me." - Derrick Rose to his Fans/ on him being an All-Star.

Rose will be going to his 3rd straight All-Star game appearance, and the 2nd straight that he will start. Rose is one of 4 Bulls to be in back to back to back All-Star games. Lets all remember that after the Jordan era, the Bulls did not have ONE all-star player until #1. Rose received 1,514,723 total votes, 3rd overall in votes.

Quotes are credited to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune and his questions asked to D. Rose earlier this morning. Congrats Derrick Rose!
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Quick Thoughts: Congratulations to Derrick Rose on this 3rd straight All-Star game. It brings joy to see that such a humble person like Rose has finally gotten the well deserved national attention. Rose is unlike any other NBA player today; One that can roar his team up without saying a word.

Tonight, Derrick Rose will walk out onto Madison Square Garden wearing the Adidas 2.5 shoe that has been named "Brenda", dedicated to his mother. Sam Smith, a blogger and writer for ChicagoBulls.com, frequently writes and tracks reasons why D.Rose is unlike any other player in the league. Yesterday, Sam Smith documented reason #676.

In the pregame before the Bulls-76ers game, Derrick Rose was approached by legendary Sixers statistician Harvey Pollack. Pollack gave Rose one of his annual stat reviews, and chatted joyfully with the now 3-time all-star. When Derrick Rose found out that Pollack had been in the NBA since 1946, and a true legend of the game, he asked Pollack to sign the review. That's right, Derrick Rose asked Harvey Pollack for his autograph.

As Chicago Bulls fans we have the great honor of watching one of the best in the game grow game by game. Rose said that he isn't taking one fan for granted, and let it be known that we as the fans, are not taking Rose for granted either.

Credits to Sam Smith of ChicagoBulls.com as well.

They're Philly Good

PHILADELPHIA--- Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young score 19 points each, as the Philadelphia 76ers (16-6) beat the Chicago Bulls (18-6) with the final score of 98 - 82 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia.

The Sixers are the top defensive team in the league, and they showed that Wednesday night by forcing 17 Chicago Bulls turnovers that led to 29 points. They also outscored the Bulls in the paint 46-28, an area of offense that the Bulls have been lacking in.

Sixers, much like the Miami Heat, are a team that loves the open court and fast breaks. They scored 21 fast break points as opposed to the Bulls four.

After the game, Derrick Rose said that the Bulls starters came out "sluggish," but reassured that the season-high 9 straight games on the road was not taking a toll on the team. Rose also stated that they wouldn't make excuses for losses regarding to the injuries of their starters Luol Deng and Rip Hamilton.

Even with such a lazy start, the Bulls were lucky to be only down by 7 at the half. Coming into the game Chicago was 1-4 when trailing at halftime, now 1-5.

The energy-lacking Bulls played one of their worst quarters of basketball this season in the 3rd, as they did not manage to a bucket until 6 and a half minutes into the quarter. It was the most decisive quarter of the game where Sixers pulled away by putting up 26 in that frame.

The Bulls were out-scored, out-rebounded, and out-hustled throughout the game. Entering the game,  Chicago had 5 straight games with double-figure offensive rebounds, a streak that ended tonight as they were only able to collect 8 offensive boards.

The Sixers complimented their great defense with terrific fast-paced offense, as 5 players were in double-digit points in the game. The leading scorer in the game for the Bulls was C.J. Watson with 20. The only other Bulls player with double-digit points was Derrick Rose with 18, which snaps his 3-game streak of scoring at least 34 points and nearly 5 points lower than his season average of 23.8.

Joakim Noah also snaps his streak of 5 straight games with a double double, bringing in only 2 points and 7 rebounds. In fact, no one on the team had a double-digit rebound total.

Following the game, coach Tom Thibodeau admitted that he would have kept the bench in all through the 4th, even if they had gotten back into the game. 

"Our defense wasn't good. I thought our reaction to the ball wasn't very good and they beat us to loose-balls..and then in the 4th quarter we tried to scrambe and try to get back in, but the hole was too big," coach Tom Thibodeau said about how the Sixers were able to beat the Bulls.

He also stated, "They're well-balanced, and there's not one aspect of the game that they don't have covered. They can break you down off the dribble, they're great in transition, they're great defensively. They're right there with everyone else," when talking about how good Sixers fair with the elite teams in the league.

The Sixers are now just one game behind the top seeded Bulls in a very competitive Eastern Conference.

The Bulls will take the short drive over to New York tonight and get ready for the sub-par Knicks tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden. Luol Deng could be making his come-back tomorrow, but Rip Hamilton is expected to stay out for a couple more games until he is fully healthy. Until then, Kyle Korver, who played for more than 36 minutes for the first them in back-to-back games since 2006, will be getting heavy playing time.

Give credit to the Sixers who have the toughest part of their schedule coming in the next couple weeks, where they will try to prove to everyone that they're a real contender in the East. Philadelphia beat Orlando on Monday, Chicago tonight, and will go for the week and home-stand sweep versus who many consider is the team to win it all this year, the Miami Heat. 

The Bulls have to move on and think past this game as one that got away; the goals of this season are more than just the best regular-season record-- Championship.