Monday NBA Roundup: Bulls Offensive Chemistry Proving Doubters Wrong

Either the Chicago Bulls are engineering the greatest fake-it-until-you-make it con in recent NBA history, or everyone's preseason projections were wrong.

With their third consecutive offensive onslaught, Jimmy Butler and a revamped Bulls roster continued scoring in a volume and manner that can only be described as shocking. They shredded the Brooklyn Nets (and the nylon ones) on Monday, notching a 118-88 win.

Jimmy Butler erupted early, hitting a pair of threes in the game's opening minutes. He finished with a game-high 22, and his scoring surge was part of a team-wide 7-of-10 start that ballooned into a 38-20 first-quarter advantage.

Chicago cruised from there, finding little resistance in a Nets club suffering from a cruel contrast in perimeter accuracy. Brooklyn hit an abysmal 5-of-31 from long range and shot 34.4 percent overall. The Bulls posted marks of 50.6 percent from the field and 40.7 percent from deep.

They even knocked in 17 of 18 foul shots, though they could have missed them all and still won by double figures.

It wasn't just that the threes were falling. Chicago's fluid offense got its juice in breakaways that may as well have been direct rebuttals to the idea that Butler, Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade couldn't coexist. Put another way, this is not an example of three alphas stopping the ball and looking for their own buckets:

Everyone pitched in: Rondo had 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting in only 25 minutes, while Wade contributed a dozen points and hit another three, running his season total to five on nine attempts. Last year, he was 7-of-44.

This bizarre new wrinkle in Wade's game is already paying dividends. Opponents now feel compelled to take up his airspace on the perimeter, which leads to things like this:

The shooting contagion infected the bench, too. Nikola Mirotic scored 16 points and hit four of his 10 triples, while Isaiah Canaan (!) knocked down three treys in four attempts en route to 15 points. For crying out loud, rookie Denzel Valentine got his first NBA bucket...and it was a three.

There are subversions and surprises at the start of every NBA regular season, but this feels like the biggest so far, doesn't it? I mean, this is the Bulls—a team Frankensteined into existence over the summer, an abomination bereft of spacing and seemingly doomed to grind-it-out mediocrity.

And that was the best-case scenario.

If the Butler-Wade-Rondo dynamic didn't work in the locker room, it wasn't unreasonable to expect a midseason fire sale. The most common reaction at how well this is all working continues to be disbelief, as Sam Smith of Bulls.com illustrated:

Chicago has talent, and it's fitting together unexpectedly well, which forces some concessions.

For starters, it seems fair to say head coach Fred Hoiberg wasn't as overmatched as he appeared last year, and that his open, uptempo style was just saddled with too many plodders. With Rondo's pace and vision, Wade's pick-your-spot bursts and Butler's unquestioned athleticism, maybe Hoiberg's sets are simply now being run by personnel actually capable of running them.

In addition to a fresh look at its coach, the Bulls' start is forcing other referendums. Maybe Rondo isn't poison on both ends. Maybe Wade, the old dog, learned a new trick. Maybe Butler was never bothered by getting and losing his alpha status in the span of a few days last July.

To hear Rondo tell it, via K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, we were all a little hasty in our guesswork on that front:

On the negative side, perhaps we're also seeing the positive effects of moving on from Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, who've had their struggles with the New York Knicks so far.

Yes, this is still part of a small sample. And yes, this latest victory came against the Nets.

But Brooklyn isn't as bad as you think; it pushed the same Boston Celtics that Chicago beat in its opener, and if not for a John Henson buzzer-beater, Brooklyn would have another win against the Milwaukee Bucks on its ledger.

Some of the shooting is bound to level off; Chicago won't lead the league in offensive efficiency all year. But the ball movement, pace and across-the-board contributions feel more sustainable. There are vets on this roster who know how to play, and Hoiberg's reputation has always been that of an offensive mind. So this really might work.

And, remember, we're starting from a relatively low bar here. The expectation was for the Bulls to be unwatchable.

So much for that. 

Same Result (for Now) from Clearly Improved Kings

David Goldman/Associated Press

The Sacramento Kings haven't won in Atlanta since March 3, 2006.

After fading in the fourth quarter and ultimately falling to the Atlanta Hawks by a final score of 106-95, that streak will survive another year. But it's starting to look like the dysfunction and malaise that marked the Kings for most of that decade-long run is on the way out.

Head coach Dave Joerger has his team leaning on defense and, more importantly, playing hard enough to fight its way back into games it previously would have surrendered without much fuss.

After previously trailing by 13 in the second quarter, Sacramento clawed back with a 22-7 in the third to take a lead. Ty Lawson pinballed all over the place trying to close the gap, as this GIF from SB Nation shows:

Rudy Gay continued his stellar production, scoring 22 points on 13 shots and serving up highlights:

Paul Millsap tallied 13 points, 14 rebounds, eight assists and three steals, though, and every Hawks starter finished in double figures. As DeMarcus Cousins' frustrations grew and Sacramento racked up 34 personal fouls (to Atlanta's 20), the Kings lost steam late.

Still, Sacramento has added admirable no-quit entries to its resume under Joerger, tussling with the San Antonio Spurs in a tough loss last Thursday and raging back from an 18-point deficit to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday.

The Kings may continue to suffer bouts of stagnant offense, and Cousins has yet to prove he can keep the extracurriculars from devaluing his dominant play. But this is a team showing resiliency and commitment we haven't seen for some time.

As a tough road trip continues, Sacramento will have more chances to prove this change is real.

Toronto Raptors Scrapping to Stay Second

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

A decisive victory over the visiting Denver Nuggets would have helped the Toronto Raptors solidify their second-banana status in the Eastern Conference, a position they owned (with a bullet) last year.

Instead, they settled for a 105-102 win that featured as many hiccups as positive indicators.

Denver is no joke; if anything, the sheer number of talented players on the roster is delaying head coach Mike Malone's process of figuring out optimal rotations. Jusuf Nurkic battered Jonas Valanciunas (and everyone else unfortunate enough to be within his considerable battering range) for 13 points, 18 rebounds and five blocks.

Despite Nurkic’s impressive performance, Malone has still shuttled him in and out of big-man combinations with Nikola Jokic, Kenneth Faried, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler through the first week. All five Denver starters scored at least 12 points amid the shuttling, though, and the Nuggets outscored Toronto by 10 points in the second half.

Regardless of the post-intermission dropoff against solid competition, the Raptors have plenty to be pleased about.

DeMar DeRozan continued doing everything he could to ease concerns his isolation-based production last year was a fluke. He punished Denver's small guards with 33 points on 13-of-23 shooting, getting almost all of his buckets in his typical back-down, up fake, lean-in fashion. Dude shot only a single three-pointer on the night.

He's had at least 30 points in three straight games.

Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun offered a possible explanation for DeRozan's focused demolition:

Kyle Lowry had 29, and DeMarre Carroll produced more evidence that he's now the player Toronto hoped it was getting last year, per Eric Koreen of The Athletic:

With the Celtics still fighting through the absences of Marcus Smart and Kelly Olynyk, the team most expected to challenge Toronto is looking vulnerable. But with Chicago and Atlanta powering to undefeated records so far, the Raptors may not find the going any easier.

One mark of an established squad, though, is working through some rough patches and still earning wins. Viewed that way, the Raptors are doing exactly what they're supposed to.

Paul Pierce Respects His Own Dress Code

Juan Ocampo/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Clippers hammered the Phoenix Suns by a final of 116-98 because the Clips are good and the Suns are in more of a "we hope someday to aspire toward goodness" place. Blake Griffin had 21 points, 11 rebounds and five assists on just seven field-goal attempts.

There was one key stretch of the first quarter where it was evident the Suns had altered their help rotation, shuffling a second defender over from the weak-side wing instead of...

I can't.

It doesn't matter.

This is the only thing worth relaying from the lone late game Monday: It's Paul Pierce dressed as Rick James.

 OK. Thanks. Bye.

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Stats courtesy of NBA.com.