It was Jimmy Butler night at the United Center on Saturday, but leave it to arguably the greatest shooter in NBA history to steal the show and rip the fight, heart and soul out of the Bulls.
Stephen Curry shooting clinics are nothing new, but his third quarter against the Bulls was just a reminder of how lethal the baby-faced assassin still is at 36. He scored 24 of the Warriors’ 42 points in the quarter. And it wasn’t just his 5-for-8 shooting from three-point range that even had Bulls fans on their feet; it was the distance and level of difficulty.
Curry finished with 34 points to help Golden State come back from a 24-point deficit in the second half and win going away 132-111.
Welcome to the new team, Jimmy.
The buzz around the new-look Warriors was the addition they made Wednesday night. They shocked the rest of the league when they swooped in and acquired Butler — a onetime standout for the Bulls — from the Heat, then quickly gave him a two-year contract extension.
Without a practice under his belt and not having played in an NBA game for two weeks because the Heat had suspended him, Butler made an instant impact, scoring 25 points.
Not bad for a guy who knew he was going to be traded after his ugly breakup with the Heat but had no idea where.
“I knew I was going somewhere, whether they were sending me to Flamengo down in Brazil, I knew I was going somewhere,” Butler said. “But I’m glad it was here. I am grateful to be playing basketball for a top organization like this one, and I want to put everything behind me and focus on the now and moving forward. I’ve got nothing bad to say about [Miami].”
Butler got the starting nod and quickly reminded fans of the game he used to display for the Bulls, handing out an assist, scoring on an alley-oop, then getting to the free-throw line for two easy ones — all in just over a minute.
Growing pains were expected with these Warriors, and growing pains came.
As good as they looked early on was as bad as they looked in the second quarter, and the Bulls (22-31) made them pay for each mistake. Not only did the Bulls go 6-for-8 from three in the quarter, but they held the Warriors to 30% shooting from the field, outscoring them 38-21.
The lead got up to 24 in the third, and then Steph happened.
The Bulls went up 24 when Josh Giddey hit a three at the 8:30 mark, and after two Butler free throws, Curry made three straight three-pointers, including a four-point play to cut the lead to 15 in a minute. Buddy Hield hit a three to cut it to 12, and by the time Curry hit another three with 3:13 left, the lead was down to six.
“[Curry] does do that,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. ‘‘Once we trapped him, he still got it back. This is what they’ve done, they’re always a great third-quarter team and we talked about that. You’ve got to keep playing because they’re not stopping. They just turned it up, and we’ve got to be able to sustain it. It was an avalanche of everything.
“You’ve got to be able to emotionally overcome that.”
The Bulls couldn’t, and it was a one-two punch that led to the knockout as Butler finished them off with 10 points in the fourth quarter.
“[Butler] was probably in the gym all day long getting ready,” Donovan said. “I’m not surprised with his competitiveness. That’s the one thing I’ve always heard about him is that he’s an incredible worker, and his competitiveness showed.”