With a little over 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the first half of the Chicago Bulls' Sunday visit to Canada to take on the Toronto Raptors, Bulls shooting guard Jimmy Butler caught a shot in the chops from Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll on a drive to the basket that ended with a layup to put Toronto up 10.
The ward-off elbow busted Butler's lip, spilling blood on the Air Canada Centre court and forcing the All-Star to head back to the locker room to get stitched up. The Raptors sure wish he'd stayed back there.
After scoring just two points on 1-for-4 shooting in the first half, Butler absolutely exploded after halftime, pouring in 40 points in the third and fourth quarters to lead the Bulls to a 115-113 comeback win. That 40-point second half stands as a new Bulls franchise record for the highest-scoring half in team history ... which is pretty freaking impressive, when you remember who used to line up at the two in Chicago, and whose name now slots in below Butler's on this particular line in the team record book:
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Most points in a half - Bulls history: Jimmy Butler (2016): 40 Michael Jordan (1989): 39 pic.twitter.com/YYsghZEdTN
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Butler made 14 of his 19 field-goal attempts and 10 of 11 free throws after intermission, mixing in hard drives to the rim and face-up jumpers to keep Toronto's defense off-balance and out of sorts. And the Bulls needed every last one of those 40 points to pull off the come-from-behind win.
Playing without injured stars Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, the Bulls trailed by 12 at halftime, but Butler's 21-point third quarter got Chicago within six heading into the fourth. The Raptors made a push to start the period, building the lead back to a dozen on a 3-pointer by veteran power forward Luis Scola with six minutes remaining in regulation. From there, though, Butler took over.
The 26-year-old either scored or directly assisted on 18 of Chicago's final 24 points in the closing six minutes, including a wild triple from the right corner with Carroll draped all over him to put the Bulls up 112-111 with 30 seconds remaining that prompted young Mr. Butler to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God:
Butler said after the game that Carroll's elbow had nothing to do with his ultra-assertive second half:
... but Jimmy sure did seem to look like a different dude once he got patched up and crossed those white lines again.
As Butler spread his wings and soared, the Raptors seemed to tighten up and shrivel. Point guard Kyle Lowry — mostly brilliant on Sunday, scoring 22 points with 10 assists and five rebounds in a game-high 39 minutes — tried to answer Butler's bomb by barrelling into the teeth of the Bulls defense and forcing a layup try, but came up empty, leading to a rebound by Bulls center Pau Gasol and a split pair of free throws that put Chicago up two with 23 seconds left.
A similar foray into one-on-one ball by backcourt partner DeMar DeRozan — who'd scored a team-high 24 points to that point — resulted in another tightly contested miss, another Chicago rebound and another split pair that pushed the lead to three with 15 seconds left. After a Jonas Valanciunas putback dunk of a missed Carroll 3 and Butler hitting one of two from the line to break Jordan's single-half franchise scoring record, Toronto had one last chance at an equalizer or winner ...
... but DeRozan's last-ditch triple try went awry, sealing a two-point win in a game that Chicago once trailed by 15 points and looking for all the world like something that could serve as a rallying point for a Bulls club that's been working through its fair share of adversity — much of it centering on Butler's at-times stumbling efforts to take an increased leadership role — in recent weeks:
Whether Butler, whom Bulls brass gave a five-year, $95 million maximum salaried contract last summer, is the official/unofficial/whatever "leader" of the Bulls as they exist now remains unclear. What does seem clear, though, is that he's hell-bent on earning every cent he can, playing pivotal late roles in wins over conference rivals Indiana and Toronto that have the Bulls on a four-game winning streak and sitting in second place in the East at 20-12, and that have elevated him into the ranks of those whose names come up when you discuss the best two-way players in the game.
All things being equal, though, Butler would prefer we not bring his name up when we discuss that other Bulls shooting guard whose record he broke on Sunday.
For one half of basketball, though, you sure could have fooled the Toronto Raptors.
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