Boston: Derrick Rose, last season's Most Valuable Player, returned to the Chicago line-up on Friday and paced the league-leading Bulls to an 88-79 victory over the Boston Celtics at the TD Garden.
Rose sat out the Bulls' win over Washington on Wednesday with a sprained toe, and after a slow start on Friday he finished with 25 points and seven assists.
The Celtics (4-6) struggled through a horrendous first half scoring with just 33 per cent of their shots while the Bulls (11-2) sprinted to a 52-33 lead.
"The great players find a way," Rose said of playing through the pain. "I want to be great. This is something I have to fight through. It's not stopping me."
Slow starts have been a recurring theme in the Celtics' current three game losing stretch, all at home.
‘Mirror image'
"We have to have better starts," said Ray Allen. "The one thing I can say is this first quarter was a mirror image of the last game. It's hard to blame it on a lack of energy, because we had great shots and didn't make them."
Boston responded with a strong push into the fourth quarter, trimming the deficit to 67-66 on a three-pointer by Mickael Pietrus with ten minutes left, before losing their momentum.
Boston missed their next two shots and Rose scored seven of the next nine points in the game to send the Bulls to victory.
"You almost expect that from him," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said of Rose.
"He let the game come to him. He didn't try to do too much. In the second half, when it was time to make something happen, he made big play after big play. We've grown accustomed to that."
Allen led the Celtics with 16 points and Rajon Rondo had a double-double with 14 points and 11 assists. Luol Deng scored 21 points for Chicago and had 16 rebounds, and Joakim Noah added 12 rebounds and ten points.
The star-studded Miami Heat, meanwhile, fell 117-104 to the Denver Nuggets — a defeat made all the more painful by an ankle injury to Dwyane Wade.
Wade left the contest in the fourth quarter after landing awkwardly.
He only returned to action on Tuesday after a three-game absence because of a bruised left foot. The Heat, led by the star trio of Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh, have now lost three in a row to close out a five-game away sequence.
