The one interesting sight at Friday's shootaround was Tom Thibodeau coaching Derrick Rose during his usual post-practice workout. Rose would practice a move and Thibs would say something like, "Try this" or "Work on that."

Still no sign of Rose playing in tonight's Game 3 at the United Center. Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich have also been ruled out.

In the meantime, the NBA assigned noted hard-line referee Joe Crawford to tonight's game. The Bulls should have learned in Game 2 not to let calls or officials get them distracted. They've got to be sharp and stick to the game plan to stay with Miami.

Game 2 featured 9 technical fouls (6 on the Bulls), along with a flagrant (on Miami's Chris Andersen) and ejections of Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson.

Dave Bolland was to miss his fifth straight playoff game Thursday with a groin injury, but the veteran center vowed to be ready for the second round if the Blackhawks advance.

“For sure, I’m working at it to make sure it gets better,” Bolland said.

Bolland said there was a 50-50 chance he would play Thursday if the series with Minnesota wasn’t 3-1 for the Hawks.

“It eats at you a lot, it’s pretty painful, actually,” Bolland said of watching. “It’s not fun being out and spending all your time in the training room and workout room while the other guys are on the ice playing.”

From one of our reporters in Springfield, Doug T. Graham:

As lawmakers continue to hem and haw over the state's pension problem, there was a big, suburban reminder of the impacts of the state's budget problems in the Capitol rotunda Thursday.

The Des Plaines-based human service group Lutheran Social Services of Illinois is experiencing the kind of fiscal double whammy of the state cutting back on human services funding and not making their already-reduced payments on time.

MIAMI -- One topic getting some play in Miami today is whether LeBron James might take a turn guarding Bulls sparkplug Nate Robinson.

If it happens, it would most likely be late in the game. James got plenty of credit for slowing down Derrick Rose during the 2011 conference finals, especially in Game 4 when Rose had chances to win the game in regulation, but couldn’t score against James one-on-one.

Rose is 6-2, Robinson is listed at 5-9. Guarding someone nearly a foot shorter would be a challenge for James. But I suppose the theory is he’d do as good a job as anyone else on the Heat roster.

“We’ll see,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s not the let time we would have done it. ‘One Through Five,’ that’s his nickname for a reason.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk and a bipartisan group of senators Wednesday introduced new Iran sanctions legislation - long a hallmark issue for the Highland Park Republican.

The new legislation - cosponsored by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, Republican Susan Collins, of Maine, Florida Democrat Bill Nelson and Texas Republican John Cornyn - targets Iran's overseas foreign exchange assets generated as a result of prohibited activities or held by designated Iranian entities.

Another day, another closer for the Cubs, at least officially. Manager Dale Sveum conceded this morning that Kevin Gregg is the team’s closer and that he’ll have that job even when Kyuji Fujikawa comes off the disabled list, most likely this weekend in Washington.

“Gregg’s our closer,” Sveum said. “That’s pretty much the way it is right now. He’s obviously earned it. There’s a bigger sample out there now.”

Fujikawa is scheduled to pitch today for Class AA Tennessee in a rehab appearance as he works his way back from a right-forearm strain.

“We’ll kind of get him in and get him acclimated and see how he’s doing out there on the mound in a big-league atmosphere," Sveum said.

MIAMI – Nothing new at Bulls shootaround today. According to coach Tom Thibodeau, Luol Deng is feeling better, but is still back in Chicago, so he won’t play tonight.

Kirk Hinrich is officially a game-time decision, but he sounded pessimistic yesterday, so doubtful would be a good description of his status.

Asked about an Internet report Derrick Rose might start suiting up for games in case of emergency, Thibodeau smirked and said, “Nothing’s changed.”

In the meantime, here’s an optimistic thought for Bulls fans: Is it possible Miami lost its edge by coasting through the second half of the season?

I was poring over some of the stats over yesterday and today and noticed some pretty interesting things, especially in the wake of the Cubs drawing a season-high 7 walks in last night’s 9-2 victory over the Texas Rangers. Two of those walks were intentional walks ordered by Rangers manager Ron Washington to light-hitting Darwin Barney.

For fun and illumination, let’s take a look at the hitting lines of two teams: the Cubs and the Oakland Athletics.

Cubs: .241/.301/.412.

Oakland:.251/.343/.413.

As we can see, the Cubs and the Athletics have slugged pretty much the same. The Cubs have hit 39 home runs as a team while the A’s have hit 33.

Duncan Keith is the proud father of a baby boy.

The Blackhawks defenseman flew back to Chicago on Monday night for the birth and was expected to return in time to play in Game 4 on Tuesday.

It’s the first child for Keith and his wife, Kelly Rae.

Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said it was a no-brainer to allow Keith to leave the team to attend the birth.

“It’s a good day for the Keiths,” Quenneville said. “It sounds like everything went well and we’re happy by the whole situation. We’re encouraged that he’ll be here today. It’s good news all the way around.

“I think family comes first in a situation like that. We’d want him to be there for his first child born. It was an easy decision. I’m very happy he was there in time and it all worked out.”

Elizabeth Roskam, wife of House GOP Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam, of Wheaton, is showing her art collection beginning this weekend and continuing through the rest of the month at the Glen Ellyn Public Library. The collection will include a portion of her “Capitol Dome” collection as well as paintings of things she’s seen all over the world.

Roskam's website shows some of her newest paintings and some of the media attention she’s gotten from them. If you've ever visited Rep. Roskam in Washington, he has several of her paintings in his both his Cannon House office and his space inside the Capitol. He even gives out stationary with her “Off to the Dome” painting on the front to visiting Illinoisans.