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The Bulls are back, baby! Grant Park victory parade starts in t-minus six months. Camp out now or risk losing your spot.
OK, so the Bulls are still really bad, but Saturday night's thorough domination of the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 100-84 victory at the United Center served as another solid reminder that they can still probably play with anyone in the East outside of the Heat and Pacers. The Bulls were without Luol Deng, Jimmy Butler and Kirk Hinrich, but it didn't matter. D.J. Augustin thrashed Kyrie Irving, Tony Snell dropped bombs, Carlos Boozer played well for the first time in YEARS maybe a month and the Bulls rolled. Dear lord, are the Cavs a trainwreck. They don't even have a good excuse!
The Bulls dominated this game across the board. The owned the glass, they hit 53.6 percent of their shots from the field, and the spacing and ball movement was completely dialed in. Snell was the benefactor of most of those open looks, and he didn't disappoint. All five of Snell's field goals were three-pointers (5-of-11 from the field, 5-of-8 from three). He looked good! It's an encouraging sign because Snell wasn't getting any burn with Deng and Butler both healthy (his minute totals over a three game stretch with both guys available: five minutes, five minutes, six minutes), so maybe this will convince Thibs to stick with him and develop him a bit later in the season. While there will still certainly be growing pains, the dude can definitely shoot. It's pretty neat to witness the rookie get his sea legs under him for the first time in his career.
We shouldn't bury the lede, though. This game was about one thing: D.J. Augustin God Mode. Yes, that is a thing that exists, apparently.
Augustin was so good. He crushed Kyrie (!) in his individual matchup and finished with 18 points, 10 assists and five rebounds on 7-of-12 shooting from the field. It was as well as a Bulls point guard has played all season. It was confusing and didn't really feel particularly good going down, but hey: nothing will this season. While I'm still totally #TeamTank, I guess games like this are a treat every once in a while if we're actually going to watch this year.