As we all know, the Bulls will be in fact without Luol Deng after he suffered an injury in the ligament of his right wrist.
After missing four games, Rose is back with a vengeance, and he showed it off in his first game back on Monday night when he tallied 22 points and eight assists in a 110-95 victory over the New Jersey Nets.
"All the games I missed I wanted to play," Rose said. "I hate to sit out. I wanted to play knowing we're winning and playing against all these great guards. I missed that."
The Pacers need to watch out for Rose, as obvious. They couldn't contain the Magic, and Howard wasn't a huge factor as he only put up 14 points and nine rebounds, including getting blocked by Indy's very own Lou Amundson (however, D12 did become the Magic's all-time leading scorer that night).
The Bulls have been playing strong as a team, and they showed that off quite well when Rose was out, going 3-1 without him. With D-Rose back in the line-up, what can Indy do? Can they stop him? They are getting some help, without Deng, as mentioned, who was averaging around 20 points during Rose's absence.
"I know it's a bad injury and it sounds terrible, but really, I think it will fine. We've got a good team, and I think I'm going to be fine," said Deng, who is hoping to avoid surgery.
"I'm just trying to get it down to a certain level where I can play again. I'm really confident in the fact that I'll be out there, hopefully soon."
Rip Hamilton will also be another tough guy to stop, who dished ten assists on Monday. It's going to be a tough one, but let's hope Indiana gets the win.
"We just have to take this loss and move on," Paul George said after the Magic loss. "It's a long season. We must continue to grow and help each other."
We'll see what happens tonight. Looks to be a good one.
Josh has been writing since 2009 and founded FootBasket in April 2009. He also writes at Hardcourt Mayhem and contributes to TrueHoop’s Eight Points Nine Seconds. He also owns his own Pacers blog at StaringDownSpike.com. Check him out on JoshDhani.com and follow him on Twitter @JoshDhani
