Perkins: Guarantees Rose Won't Beat Celtics Again

While all of Chicago was buzzing about Derrick Rose's epic 36-point performance, as you'd imagine, the folks in Boston weren't as thrilled with it.  Now it seems that the Celtics are focused on one thing, and one thing only.

Stop Derrick Rose.

Some Celtics have even gone as far as guaranteeing that Rose will not have a repeat performance on Monday night.  In particular, Kendrick Perkins.

“Everybody has their night,” Perkins said. “I know it won’t happen again. He’ll never have another game like that against us. It wasn’t anything that they did. It was all on us.”

That's pretty big talk coming from a guy who only averages 8.5 points a game, though if anybody knows about not scoring, it's probably Perkins.  We'll also neglect the fact that Perkins amazing interior defense is largely responsible for limiting Rose to 36 points in the first game.

More likely it'll turn out that Perkins' bark doesn't have nearly the bite it has when he has Kevin Garnett backing him up.

Still, even if Derrick isn't able to match his game one performance on Monday night, he doesn't need to.  As Vinny Del Negro said after the game, he thought Rose's 11 assists were a lot more helpful in helping the Bulls take the first game of the series.  If the Celtics want to key on Rose and throw double-team after double-team after him all night, all he's going to do is find the open man, whether that's Ben Gordon, Joakim Noah, or Tyrus Thomas.

So whether he lights up the scoreboard or not, Derrick Rose will have an impact on game two.  We guarantee it.

Along with writing for NBCCHICAGO.com, Tom Fornelli can also be found contributing at FanHouse, SPORTSbyBROOKS, and his own Chicago sports blog Foul Balls.