NEW YORK --- Tom Thibodeau confirmed that Derrick Rose will start against the Knicks today.

How much Rose will play remains to be seen. The Bulls coach said he will give Rose 6 to 8 minutes to start the game and re-evaluate from there.

"You don't know where a guy is," Thibodeau said. "It's similar to Rip [Hamilton]. It's such a long period of time. There's going to be some rust with timing and stuff like that. To me, it's one thing in practice. You try to get practice as close to game-like conditions as possible but at this time of year you're not going to go as long and you know you're never going to get that intensity level the same as in a game. It will be interesting to see. In the past whenever he has missed time he has come back very strong and picked things up very quickly."

Rose has missed 12 games after injuring his groin in a win over these same Knicks at the United Center on March 12.