The ghost of Derrick Rose is somehow helping the Timberwolves survive

This Derrick Rose was supposed to be buried long ago. He shouldn’t still have the speed to put opposing defenders on their heels and get into the paint at will. He shouldn’t be able to absorb contact at the rim and muscle his way to two points. He isn’t supposed to carry an offense for entire stretches and change the complexion of a playoff game with his scoring ability.

A constant string of knee and ankle injuries should have sapped the physical gifts that once made him the NBA’s most electrifying young player. Yet here’s Derrick Rose in the NBA playoffs, attacking the basket and flying in transition and closing out games.

He scored 10 points in nine minutes in the second quarter of the Timberwolves’ Game 3 win over Houston, then played all 12 minutes of the fourth quarter. He did it in ways that looked and felt familiar to his former self, if only in a few fleeting moments.

To see him burn defenders off the dribble, whip his body through the air, change hands and finish like this feels like a fever dream brought to life. This is the D. Rose that existed in 2011, not 2018 (full highlights here):

Through three games against the Rockets, Rose has been reborn as a microwave bench scorer for Minnesota. He scored 16 points in a close Game 1 loss and 17 points in a huge Game 3 win, giving the Wolves some legitimately good minutes in the process.

A lot has changed both for Rose and the NBA since he became the league’s youngest ever MVP. His prime came during the league’s final years before the three-point revolution, making a long-time weakness in his game even more pronounced. A player that relied this much on pure athleticism was always going to have trouble aging gracefully, and that’s before considering three knee surgeries and bone spurs in his ankles. His defense is atrocious, and has been now for years.

Despite it all, Rose is still able to make a handful of plays per game that register as stunning for their athletic grace and explosion. The old D. Rose is long gone, but a flickering light still remains. That player, even as a shell of himself, is finding a way to make an impact for the Timberwolves.

It’s a miracle that Rose is playing in the playoffs at all. When he was traded from the Cavs and subsequently released by Utah in the midseason deal that brought Rodney Hood to Cleveland, it looked like Rose’s NBA career might be over.

He famously disappeared from the Knicks last season. Before that campaign even started, he was accused (and later found not liable) of sexual assault. After an offseason move to Cleveland, where he latched on in the summer for a minimum contract, he took a two-week leave of absence to rehab his ankle and then got married while no one in the organization knew when or if he’d return.

There is one coach who still believed in Rose, and that coach also happened to have to the personnel power to sign him. Tom Thibodeau’s attachment to the recent past has often appeared to hamstring this Timberwolves team, as if he refused to let go of old battles and adopt the league’s new reality.

But he’s found something in Rose’s volume scoring off the bench that no one else thought existed, and it’s played an important role in Minnesota making this first-round series more competitive than expected.

Rose is never going to play the most efficient game because he doesn’t hit threes or get to the foul line anymore. It’s why his 17 points on 16 shots performance in Game 3 doesn’t jump out in the box score, even though he hit half his field goal attempts. Whatever Rose gives Minnesota should be all gravy, but in these playoffs he’s become the highest usage player on the team.

Rose’s 31.6 usage rate towers over that of Jimmy Butler (20.1) and Karl-Anthony Towns (18.5). He’s taken eight more shots than Towns and three more shots than Butler in these playoffs despite playing 40 less minutes than either.

That’s probably not a good thing. The Wolves need to run the offense through the Butler and Towns two-man game. But Butler struggled the first two games while battling a hand injury, and Towns has been lost all series.

If Minnesota is going to stake a real comeback against Houston, those need to be the Wolves’ two stars. While they take time to find their footing, Rose’s bench scoring has at least helped Minnesota get the series to 2-1 as the Target Center readies for Game 4.

Rose isn’t a real solution for Minnesota, but he really has helped keep them alive. Thibodeau might be the only person in the NBA who thought it was possible.