But that's nothing compared to the potential heartbreak of another Derrick Rose knee injury.

Rose left the game with a right knee injury with 3:30 left in the third quarter and limped to the locker room with assistance. The ACL surgery that caused him to miss all of last season was on his other knee, the left. Rose will have an MRI exam Saturday in Los Angeles.

"I'm concerned," coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters after the game. "Any time anyone goes down, you're concerned. But I don't want to speculate until we have more information."

The problem occurred when Rose made a backdoor cut to the basket, but a pass from Joakim Noah was stolen and never got to its intended target. As Rose stopped and tried to change direction, his right knee seemed to buckle. He didn't go to the floor, but limped after regaining his balance.

He went straight to the bench with assistant trainer Jeff Tanaka checking the right knee. After a few minutes sitting on the bench in some discomfort, Rose was helped to the locker room. There will be further examination Saturday, obviously, but the scene didn't look good.

"He has pain and thought that he couldn't push off his right knee," Thibodeau said. "Derrick's a hard guy to read. He doesn't show a lot of emotion. I know how much work he put into his rehab, what type of person he is, what type of player he is. I feel for him because of all the things he does for our team."

The Bulls are already playing without starting guard Jimmy Butler because of turf toe. Depth is a huge problem with rookies Tony Snell and Erik Murphy getting little opportunity. But the team's performance on the rest of this six-game circus road trip is minor compared to latest health issue.

The Bulls lost Thursday night at Denver, but put together a strong effort in Friday's first half and took a 59-44 lead into halftime.

During that first half, Rose scored 17 points, while Portland stars LaMarcus Aldridge and Damien Lillard combined to hit 2 of 17 shots.

Rose's injury was the low point of a miserable third quarter. The Bulls turned that 15-point halftime lead into a 7-point deficit in a matter of 12 minutes, getting outscored 34-12.