The Chicago Bulls play the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday. Tipoff is at 10:30 p.m. ET. Listen to the live radio broadcast below.
Chicago is 7-3, despite star player Derrick Rose having played in just five games this season. He's set to miss his second straight game with a sore hamstring, leaving the Bulls shorthanded again as they look to bounce back from Saturday's 99-90 loss to the Indiana Pacers.
Rose made headlines last week when he said he would sit out games to preserve his health for the future, days before injuring his hamstring Thursday against the Toronto Raptors. While some critics have questioned Rose's commitment to the team, teammate Joakim Noah came to Rose's defense.
"Looking at it as a teammate, it's just frustrating because I feel like he's sometimes portrayed as something that he's not," Noah said last week, via CSN Chicago. "You don't come back from the injuries that he's coming back from without unbelievable commitment, you know what I'm saying?
"I know how much he cares about this game," Noah continued. "I see it every day. I think we're all in this together and this is not a one-man team, but at the end of the day, we need him. We need him. I just, I don't want to see him down. I know sometimes it's frustrating, you got injuries, you got tweaks. Every time something happens to him, people act like it's the end of the world. And that's f- so lame to me. Relax. Like, OK, he's coming back from two crazy surgeries. Obviously we're being conservative with him, and when things aren't going right, he's got to listen to his body more than anybody. So everybody needs to chill the f- out. I mean, I'm sorry for cursing, but I'm really passionate. I don't like to see him down. And he doesn't say that he's down, but I don't like it when, like, people portray him and judge him. 'Cause it's not fair to him. It's not."
Los Angeles, meanwhile, is 5-3. The team has been inconsistent for all of November, alternating wins and losses while being unable to string together two straight wins since October. Clippers center DeAndre Jordan has provided the only consistency on defense, averaging 11.9 rebounds per game.
