Rose OK, Gooden shoots for Saturday

Derrick Rose, who sat out the final six minutes of Saturday’s game at Phoenix with a strained foot, participated in the entire shootaround this morning and should be good to go tonight against the Houston Rockets.

Drew Gooden (strained groin) won’t play tonight, but is getting closer to returning to action. He practiced some Monday and stayed after the shootaround this morning to shoot for another 45 minutes.

“I’m feeling better,” he said. “I’m shooting for the Dallas game [Saturday]. I think that’s the big picture right now.

“We’ll have to see. I practiced and I felt OK. Coach [Vinny Del Negro] didn’t want me to rush, so he kept me short in practice. I’m just gonna continue to do my exercises off the court to help me get back.”

The Bulls play in New Orleans on Wednesday, but the plan now is to give Gooden a few more days to make sure he’s ready to go.

“The one thing I don’t want to do is hurt myself, but also not hurt the team,” he said. “I’ll be hurting my team more than helping them playing injured.”