Power Rankings

Of the many reasons they're up here now: The Bulls have played five games at home, and in precisely none of those five did the visitors manage to score 75 points. As long as D-Rose's toe troubles don't linger, they'll be hard to dislodge from this perch.

As long as this turf-toe deal eventually heals, Rose and the Bulls are bound to be grateful later that he's getting rest now and that they're getting away with it in the short term against a string of sub-.500 foes. Think you already know what it means if the toe isn't healing properly.

D-Rose became the youngest MVP in NBA history last season largely because of the way he kept the Bulls rolling even when Noah or Boozer was out of the lineup. The worry for him this season is the Bulls' apparent destiny to be even more banged up as a team than those 2010-11 Bulls, D-Rose included.

Luol Deng is apparently determined to be the Kobe of the East by pretending he's not playing with a mangled wrist. And D-Rose's toe must be holding up OK, too, given that his recent run of three straight games with at least 34 points is something no Bull had done since Michael Jeffrey Jordan in late February of the 1996-97 season.

When does churning out a league-leading 23 wins from an absolute grind of a start -- which called for 20 of those first 30 games to be played on the road -- provide precious little comfort? When an ailing D-Rose is moved to come out and announce the following: "I just know my back is not right."

We keep sayin' it: Outside of San Antonio, maybe no team plays through regular-season injuries like Da Bulls. A 7-3 record sans D-Rose, though, doesn't provide much joy because back injuries are so unpredictable. The East's No. 1 seed has to be secondary now to get Rose as right as possible for the playoffs.

The Bulls haven't started this well since a 31-4 launch in '96-97 led to a tidy 69-13 mark, but concern persists about D-Rose's back, Rip's limited impact as the Bulls' marquee offensive addition and three games with Miami before we even get to the playoffs: March 14 (home), April 12 (home) and April 19 (road).

The Bulls haven't started this well since a 31-4 launch in '96-97 led to a tidy 69-13 mark, but concern persists about D-Rose's back, Rip's limited impact as the Bulls' marquee offensive addition and three games with Miami before we even get to the playoffs: March 14 (home), April 12 (home) and April 19 (road).

Big win in San Antonio to start the second half. Six straight wins overall. Best average nightly point differential (+9.4 ppg) in the league. And Derrick Rose is back in full flow after that five-game shelving to get his back right. Put it all together and the Bulls are safely back up in the stratosphere where they belong.

Thursday's TNT loss to Orlando was the Bulls' first with D-Rose on the floor since Feb. 1. Something tells me that Miami's visit to Chicago on Wednesday will attract a decent amount of attention, even as it falls amid March Madness and on the eve of the latest trade deadline in NBA history.