TORONTO -- Jimmy Butler's history-making half started simply. The Chicago Bulls guard sized up Toronto Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll, drove hard to the right and finished at the rim at the beginning of the third quarter. A couple of possessions later, Butler used a screen from Pau Gasol, then set his big man up for an open jumper. Next time, he used the same screen and scored over Jonas Valanciunas.
After having trouble with Toronto's pressure defense in the first half, Bulls coach Fred Holberg figured the best thing to do was just give Butler the ball and run isolations and high screens. Time after time, he delivered.
"It wasn't rocket science," Holberg said Sunday.
Butler played the entire second half and scored 40 points in those 24 minutes. Every one of them was necessary for Chicago to come back from a 15-point deficit to steal a 115-113 win on the road. Butler said he was "just playing basketball" and his teammates kept urging him to shoot. "I guess that's what put me in the zone, so to speak," he said, adding that nothing like this had ever happened in his life.
He scored his 40 points on 14-for-19 shooting, 2-for-3 from 3-point range and 10-for-11 from the free throw line. He scored them after having just two points in the first half. He scored them against Carroll, Terrence Ross and DeMar DeRozan. Performances like this often make the game look easy, but Butler was clearly working hard as hell.
"We tried everybody and everything," Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. "Couldn't get him stopped."
Late in the fourth quarter with the Bulls down by two, Butler caught a pass in the right corner and Gasol approached to set a screen. Instead of putting the ball on the floor, Butler rose for a 3-pointer. It dropped through the net, and Chicago had a lead it would not relinquish. Butler yelled, "Can't guard me!" That tied Michael Jordan's franchise record for points in a half, and a free throw in the final seconds broke it.
"I was looking at Bobby [Portis], like, this is crazy," Chicago big man Taj Gibson said. "He just couldn't miss! He was just attacking, he was getting fouled. Then he was guarding DeMar extremely well, playing the passing lanes. The way his shot was going -- tough shots, fadeaways, like, he was doing it all, and-1s -- his motor was unbelievable tonight. Then I didn't know if that corner shot was going to go in. From the side we were on, it didn't look like it was going down. And it just went down."
Gibson implied the explosion was motivated by a bloody collision in the second quarter. Carroll drove to the basket for a layup using his left arm as a shield, and that shield hit Butler square in the mouth. A foul was called on Butler, and he had to leave the game to get stitched up. Before he walked off, he loudly expressed his displeasure to the officials.
"So much blood flowing everywhere, he was so mad," Gibson said. "I've never seen him be that mad before after getting a rough foul call, but especially getting his lip busted. He came back a man possessed."
Butler admitted he was upset, but said Carroll "punching me in the mouth" had nothing to do with how he knocked out the Raptors.
"I mean, he didn't do it on purpose," Butler said. "He messed my swag up, though, so I can't go on a date for a while."
The smiling, laughing Butler in the locker room stood in stark contrast to the frustrated one who told reporters two weeks ago that Holberg had to coach the team harder. Those comments created a controversy after a lopsided loss against the New York Knicks, and then the Bulls lost to the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 21. Joakim Noah hurt his shoulder at the Barclays Center and was ruled out for at least two weeks. It seemed like everything could fall apart.
ESPN's Zach Lowe reported that "there is a sense that Butler relishes the trappings of stardom a bit too much, and that he doesn't do enough to support his teammates, as a playmaker or a cheerleader," and Noah said Chicago was searching for an identity. In a Washington Post podcast, ESPN's Nick Friedell said it at least had to consider trading Butler, who signed a five-year, $95 million contract in July.
On Christmas Day, the Bulls opened their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder with an 11-0 run. They held on for a wire-to-wire win, and have now won five of six games, including two against Toronto and three in a row without point guard Derrick Rose, who is dealing with hamstring and knee trouble.
"We're not going to throw fireworks," Gasol said. "We haven't won a championship, nor getting close yet. But we're in the right path. Now we're competing. Ever since the Oklahoma game, we're competing every night and we're giving ourselves a chance every single night. That's what we need to continue to do."
Ironically, Chicago might have found itself without Rose and Noah, the two players who have done the most to define the franchise in recent years. If Butler's brilliance at the Air Canada Centre proves anything, it's that there should be no doubt about his place on the team or in the league.
"[He is] one of the best," Gibson said. "Hands down. He put the work in. He works hard every day in practice. And it shows. But it shows even more now when he wants the ball late in the game. He's not running away from the basketball, he's running to it. He's taking on the challenge of guarding the best player and then when we need him to make a big shot, he connects. It was a good sign. It brought the team together as a whole."
Despite all the drama that surrounded the Bulls, they are second in the Eastern Conference, 2 1/2 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers. After the buzzer in Toronto, Gasol hugged Butler and congratulated him. Then the rest of the team ran over and huddled up.
"We were just talking about, we gotta build off of this and keep going," Butler said. "Don't settle."
