Jimmy Butler is becoming leader of the Chicago Bulls before our eyes.
There were two Chicagoans playing in last night’s game at the United Center featuring the Chicago Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks in Derrick Rose and Jabari Parker, but it was Jimmy Butler who stole the show. And this was one game after he dropped 42 points against the Toronto Raptors with 40 of those points coming in the second half. That was a franchise record, by the way, which Jimmy took from someone you might have heard of named Michael Jordan.
Butler finished with 32 points versus Milwaukee and tied his career high with 10 assists in the 117-106 victory, but it is Rose who deserves credit for handing over the reigns of the bulls to their hot swingman.
“Jimmy had it hot. I was going to him in the beginning, he got us the lead,” the PG said to ESPN. “We got a great start in the beginning. He’s ballin’ right now so keep going to him until he doesn’t want the ball anymore.”
Butler is averaging a healthy 21.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game in the 2015-16 season, and it bears asking whether he could be the first guy ever to win most improved player for two years in a row. That probably won’t happen, but the mere fact we are discussing it is pretty remarkable. Rose and Butler were showing great ball chemistry during the second quarter in particular, which you can check out in the highlights below.
Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg joked after the game that he was disappointed “Jimmy Buckets” only dropped 20 points in the first half, and “The Mayor” must truly appreciate how Butler has backed up his words following the “we have to get coached harder” Knicks game.
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The Bulls are now rolling on a five-game win streak and have established themselves as the second-best team in the Eastern Conference from a talent perspective. They also sit at no. 2 in the standings but are just half a game ahead of the Miami Heat, and some continued performances like this from Jimmy will have Chicago with home court in at least the first two rounds of the playoffs. Butler credits the team’s communication in the locker room to their play of late and not his public lashing of the head coach.
“Whenever we was losing the way that we were losing I think everybody knew the group of guys that we have, what we’re capable of,” he said. “It wasn’t what I said or what anyone else said, it was what we said together as a team in that locker room that nobody knows, and that’s we got a really good team on paper, out there on the court — but if we don’t play with one another and we don’t stick together, we’re not a really good team.”
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Rose deserves a lot of praise for ceding the control of this team to Jimmy, because it would’ve been quite easy for him to make a stink in the media about it. Although most of these Bulls would probably take some whispers behind backs in the locker room if it meant that they are able to keep winning like this.