The Cleveland Cavaliers can close out the Chicago Bulls in Game 6 tonight, but Derrick Rose was built for this moment and he’s been waiting for it for four years.
Four years ago, Derrick Rose was in the Eastern Conference Finals and three games away from the NBA Finals when the Miami Heat turned it on and scorched the earth he stood on. That Game 1 win in 2010-11 was the last great moment of Derrick Rose’s career, as he battled an ACL injury and a variety of knee injuries for much of the next three years which prevented him from being the player he was looking to be in that MVP season of his.
But tonight, he looks to take back his crown and once again become the player that we all expected him to develop into after the 2010-11 campaign.
The only question is, can the Cavalier stop him or will the moment swallow them up?
Derrick Rose’s last great moment as a player in the NBA was stepped on by LeBron James — and the favor could be returned over the course of the next two games. Cleveland needs to find a way to close the Bulls out in a big way tonight, but that could be a lot easier said than done.
Basically, the Cavaliers need to play the way they have over the last two games just one more time against the Bulls to beat them but that’s no easy task. Derrick Rose isn’t the only member of the Bulls who has waited four years for another legitimate crack at knocking the crown off LeBron’s head, as Joakim Noah and Tom Thibodeau have as much if not more to lose than Rose.
Noah isn’t getting any younger, and his championship window will close faster than Rose’s. He does have the benefit of being a big man with skill in the NBA, which means he could play a Shaq-style role on a contenders in the future. But his window with the Bulls is what he cares about now — and it’s borrowed time at this point.
No time is more borrowed than that of Tom Thibodeau, who would love nothing more than to win the NBA Finals to A) get his own ring and B) stick it to management that wants to fire him.
But the narrative surrounds Rose, as this is his moment. All distractions aside, this is the moment where Derrick Rose can officially drop the ‘if he stays healthy’ tag and just be good and healthy at the same time. There is no more time for promise and no more time for what-ifs. The NBA has endured three years of that, and now is the time for Rose to blossom.
That’s what the Cavaliers are up against in Game 6, and confidence shouldn’t be taken for granted.
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