Jan. 04--The Bulls improved to 20-12 with their road victory over the Raptors on Sunday. Here are three observations.
Jimmy Butler did more than make franchise history
Butler did the right thing obviously in quickly shooting down any and all questions about Michael Jordan, whose 27-year-old franchise record Butler broke by scoring 40 points in the second half.
But here's what Butler did that proved very Jordan-esque: He came back from a blow -- a DeMarre Carroll forearm to the face -- and willed his team to victory with passion and purpose.
Granted, Butler did this for one game while Jordan did it for a career. So any comparisons to Jordan should stop. But the point is: What Butler did is the stuff of true stardom, delivering basket after basket at a time an entire defense is stacked to stop him.
Butler's face-up 3-pointer -- a shot he isn't incredibly accurate with -- for the go-ahead points with 30.9 seconds left came over Carroll. That's serious stuff.
"It's not that you're up 20 and suddenly you get hot, you make shots, shoot a low percentage and still score a lot of points," Pau Gasol said of the performance. "He did it in a way that was critical for us."
E'Twaun Moore played solid down the stretch again
That's two straight strong closing performances from the unheralded reserve, who hadn't played by coach's decision the previous five games.
Moore tied the game in the final minute with a putback of a rare Butler miss. More importantly, he slid over to provide help defense on Kyle Lowry after Butler's go-ahead 3-pointer.
"E'Twaun was solid," coach Fred Hoiberg said.
Gasol, quietly, had a huge game
The veteran big man stuffed the box score with 19 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four blocks. The last of these blocks came with 17.9 seconds left as DeMar DeRozan drove to the basket to try to tie the game after beating Tony Snell off the dribble.
"It was a very important week for us," Hoiberg said, noting Sunday started a stretch of 14 of 20 on the road. "The first thing was to protect our home court; we had three good wins. That Indiana game wasn't looking too good there at the end. We found a way to pull that one out and the same thing with (Sunday's) game. Now we have to go back home for a couple and hopefully build off this, play well and get our confidence up and hopefully get a couple of guys healthy. That would help us right now."
