Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler punctuated the best Playoff game of his young NBA career with a huge dunk over Zaza Pachulia, leading the Chicago Bulls to a commanding 2-0 series lead Monday night.
The Bulls held off the visiting Milwaukee Bucks 91-82, behind Butler’s game-high 31 points.
Game 2 was a chippy affair, with tempers flaring a few times, but in the end Chicago did what they had to do on their homefloor.
Per the Chicago Tribune:
(Derrick) Rose missed his first seven shots and failed to score in the first half, a first in his postseason career. […] But there was Jimmy Butler, leading the Bulls for the second straight game with a career-playoff-high 31 points, including 14 in the fourth quarter. Butler scored 10 points and had a nasty dunk over Zaza Pachulia and three-point play in the game-changing 13-0 fourth-quarter run.
“That one dunk Jimmy had was definitely huge,” Joakim Noah said. “It gave us some confidence as a team. After he did that, he was really feeling himself. Everyone was pumped up after that one.”
“It may have seemed like a little thing, but it was big to have Derrick back for those last five games of the regular season,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “That gave us a chance to get comfortable. And now we’re starting to find a rhythm.” […] “Jo and Derrick were telling me to score, like literally telling me to shoot and not to pass up any shots,” Butler said. “So I was feeling it a little bit. And I just put the ball in the basket.”
