When healthy, the Chicago Bulls will be a tough out for any team in the Eastern Conference.

These two statements were rammed home in a lopsided affair at the Barclays Center Monday night. The Bulls overcame a sluggish start to completely outclass the Nets en route to a 27-point blowout win in which almost every Bull who stepped on the court looked good.

Rather than a blow-by-blow account of a largely pedestrian game – the Brooklyn crowd hardly betrayed the sense of urgency this game required from those wearing black and white – we’ll simply focus on the positives and negatives the Bulls can take from such a dominant win.

Derrick Rose (13 points, 5-13 shooting, 7 assists) looked the best he has since his return (small sample size, duh) and has now threaded together a pair of very good games. While 5-13 doesn’t read well, he was 5-10 at halftime including 2-3 from deep. Tonight his shot was falling with more regularity, he displayed an increased appetite to drive to the rim and his court vision seems to have improved. Either that or it just looks good when placed next to Kirk Hinrich and Aaron Brooks.

Regardless, Rose dished to his teammates early and often, finding passing lanes and angles to open shooters when the defense predictably collapsed around him.

Jimmy Butler (17 points, 7-10 shooting) may not be the overwhelming force of nature he was before Christmas, but his level of play is certainly close to that peak again. Taj Gibson (15 points, 5-6 shooting, 9 rebounds) is still a diminished player thanks to numerous ankle issues but he also has raised his game in the past week and is looking closer to his own peak level.

The Bulls biggest weapon in the playoffs will undoubtedly be Nikola Mirotic (26 points, 6-11 3pt shooting). The Serbian hit a career-high-tying 6 three-point field goals tonight including a barrage in the second half where he was running back on defense before the shot had even fallen.

Now, a lot of the good stuff the Bulls showed off tonight can be traced to a Brooklyn team who simply don’t belong in the playoffs. While the roster isn’t terrible, the mentality is non-existent. Tonight marked the second time in three years the Bulls have ended the Nets season on their own floor in humiliating fashion. Back then it was Joakim Noah running rampant in Game 7 despite having one functional leg/

Noah was listed as active but did not play tonight, likely given the night off to deal with what was called “left knee tendinitis” but was likely just a front to get him a much needed breather before this weekend.

The Bulls have now secured no worse than 4th as the Wizards cannot catch them from 5th. The Bulls now need to hope the Raptors trip up over their last two games to move back into the third seed and avoid the team who dumped them out of the first round last season.

The Nets may well live to regret this game. The Indiana Pacers leapfrogged them into 8th despite having the night off, though their remaining games against Washington and Memphis mean Brooklyn can still count themselves alive in the race for the final playoff spot in the East (Boston secured 7th with the Brooklyn loss).

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Watch any network TV show and you’ll come across filler episodes. Most of the time, it’ll be an uninspired Case of the Week or Patient of the Week. Sometimes the show will sneak an important scene in at the end to make the episode still relevant in the grand scheme. Tonight’s Bulls-Sixers game was the NBA version of that.

There’s been some hand-wringing over the Bulls not putting away a Sixers team that played without Nerlens Noel or a point guard, but of all the lackluster Bulls efforts this season, this one was way down the list. Unlike other games, there was never a real sense the Bulls would choke this one away. Also, this Bulls team has established that they aren’t really into trying hard consistently. If they weren’t getting up for Miami right off the bat after flat-out giving away a game to Orlando, they weren’t getting up for the posterboys of tanking who were missing their best player.

There were only two meaningful takeaways from this game:

1. Thibs finished with Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, mixing in Pau Gasol for a couple offensive possessions. The exact decisions between those three will likely vary game-to-game, but it appears Nikola Mirotic will not be a part of their closing lineups, unless it makes sense to slot him at small forward, where the results have been mixed.

2. Derrick Rose took over the end of this game. Attempting to describe the myriad of plays he made would be an injustice, so I recommend just finding the highlights. Driving into the lane, running back for a steal, a long-distance jump pass, he did it all. (Well, except shoot well from outside…)

He finished with 22 points on 8-19 shooting, six boards, eight assists, three steals and no turnovers in 28 minutes, a bump up from his first couple games back. The Bulls, still in the #4 slot because of Toronto’s win over Miami, have two games left to continue to reintegrate him.

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Kyrie Irving hit a buzzer-beating three to end the first quarter and beat the shot-clock in the third quarter from 70 feet. J.R. Smith nailed a three to beat the halftime buzzer as he fell out of bounds near half-court.

Smith’s shooting was symptomatic of the kind of night the Cavs had as he hit seven of his first 10 from deep (while taking zero shots inside the arc) and finished 8-17 from deep for 24 points, still with zero two-point shot attempts.

Irving finished with a game-high 27 points and hit four of his five long balls as the Cavs shot a smoldering 42 percent from deep. The Cavs have now won 18 consecutive home games.

Oh yeah, and that LeBron James guy had a triple-double – his first of the season – 20 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.

The Bulls, for their part, somehow hung around all game despite the Cavaliers’ incredible shot-making. Aaron Brooks and Mike Dunleavy were the two bright spots for Chicago, finishing with 17 and 24 points respectively.

Despite shooting around 50 percent for most of the game, Chicago consistently dug in and prevented the game from getting away from them when they went down double-digits. On more than one occasion the crowd at the Quicken Loans Arena was on its feet anticipating a big Cleveland run into the distance and on more than one occasion the Bulls would rip off a crowd-silencing streak of baskets.

Once again though, the defense was an inconsistent mess: Three-point shooters were left open; LeBron James was given plenty of space and favorable matchups all night; Chicago put Joakim Noah on Kevin Love on the perimeter while leaving Pau Gasol to box out the massive frame of Timofey Mozgov under the rim.

The offense was still good but not good enough. Nikola Mirotic was a poor 3-12 from the floor and Jimmy Butler not much better at 6-14. Mirotic did hit a pair of late threes as the Bulls threatened to rally, closing the deficit to just five points with 2:49 to play.

However, those final 2:49 were symbolic of the entire night. With the ball and down five, Butler committed a turnover under the basket. The Cavs would score a pair of free-throws on the next possession. Pau Gasol then decided to throw the ball away down seven (their 5th giveaway of the 4th quarter) and again the Bulls gave up points off their turnovers –  Cleveland finished with 19 points off 16 Bulls turnovers.

Cleveland is now a virtual lock for the 2nd spot in the Eastern Conference and the loss means the Bulls stay 1.5 games ahead of the Raptors, though the Raptors will have the advantage of being a division winner.

The Bulls finish with a relatively good schedule – at Orlando, at Miami, vs 76ers, at Nets, vs Hawks. The Raptors, however, finish with a similarly light workload with games against Orlando, Miami, Boston and a pair of games against Charlotte.

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Continuing trends from their recent games, the Bulls played a ugly contest tonight with the Pistons in which they frittered away a large lead.

The game began with an unremarkable hour or so of basketball, only marked by Reggie Jackson suffering what looked like a scary injury as he peeled around a pick on offense, but it thankfully turned out to be that he was merely poked in the eye. Also, Andre Drummond (14 points, 22 boars, 6 blocks in 42:32) continued his strong play against the Bulls this season with a handful of early rebounds.

Chicago managed to build a 16 point lead early in the third, but back-to-back threes and a crazy, one-handed scoop shot from Jackson as the shot clock expired. Buckets from all five Pistons on the floor (Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Caron Butler, Anthony Tolliver, Drummond) cut the lead from 16 to three in just three minutes. By the end of the quarter, the game was tied.

Pau Gasol finished with 26 points and ten rebounds, yet another amazing statline in a bounce-back season for the ages, but the Bulls seemed to thrive a bit better with him off the floor. With Joakim Noah (six points, nine boards, ten assists), Gibson and Nikola Mirotic on the floor, the Bulls regained the lead. While Noah on the bench for just two and a half minutes, Detroit came back yet again to tie the game at 78 with 2:26 remaining.

At that point, Aaron Brooks, despite one of the most brutal performances of his season, put Chicago up for good on a three and then a difficult drive off of a pick and roll with Gibson. Brooks scored, but both possessions were very disappointing, as Jimmy Butler and Nikola Mirotic were relegated to standing on the perimeter while a dangerous but inferior driver handled the ball in sets involving Gasol and then Gibson.

The Pistons made one final push by stymieing Pau on one end and then having Drummond beat him back down the floor for a score, as seen here:

However, Pau redeemed himself by emphatically jamming a putback of a Gibson miss, plus hitting the free throw to complete the and-1, making it 86-82 with 5.7 seconds to play.

Toronto lost to the Nets, putting the Bulls back in the driver’s seat for the 3 seed, though this game showed signs that the Bulls still can be exposed, mainly with Pau’s defense and Tom Thibodeau’s confusing decision-making. By splitting 2-2 with Detroit, the Bulls have now split or won the season series with 26 teams. Only the Hawks have clinched over the Bulls, while Cleveland and Miami are yet to be resolved.

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The Bulls blew the Toronto Raptors out of their own building Wednesday night,  shooting a season-high 61% to turn a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit into a 13-point road  victory and complete a season sweep of the Raptors.

The incredible shooting was the Bulls’ best since November 2nd, 2012 (63.8%) and was  the catalyst for them overcoming a sluggish, low-energy opening three quarters as they  capped their night with a 39-21 fourth quarter explosion.

Chicago could barely miss a shot in the final period, opening it 13-17 from the field and  finishing the quarter 15-20 to shred the Raptors’ slumping defense to ribbons.

No particular Bull led things emphatically in the fourth quarter as seven Bulls scored 4 or more in the frame, though Nikola Mirotic’s 15 points on 6-11 shooting included more of the kind of plays that have recently seen him ghost up on the field for Rookie of the Year as his offense carried the Bulls early and helped kill the game as a contest late.

Jimmy Butler played his second game back from injury and looked back to his All-Star best, posting 23 points on 7-8 shooting, hitting a pair of threes and going 7-9 at the free-throw line. Pau Gasol had 18 points mostly early and Tony Snell had 17 points, 7 in the fourth quarter on 7-9 shooting as his confidence continues to grow.

Even Kirk Hinrich hit timely shots – his three field goals coming at crucial junctures with Toronto threatening to run into the distance in the first half or make a late comeback run were held off easily.

The Raptors had given the Bulls all the offense they could handle, especially in a first half where it felt like they were unable to miss, especially from deep – Greivis Vasquez hit four first-half triples and finished with a career-high 6 threes on 11 attempts to post 22 points to lead Toronto.

Despite Toronto shooting lights out from deep for the first 40 minutes, many of their long shots were low percentage looks that eventually stopped dropping once the Bulls defense began to bite down the stretch. The Raptors hit 9 of their first 16 threes and missed all of their final five.

The win moves the Bulls clear in third place, 1.5 games up on the Raptors as they aim to win as many as possible with the lower half of the Eastern Conference bracket too crazy to predict – the Indiana Pacers looked like the lower-seed nightmare nobody wanted to draw 10 days ago and they have now lost 7 straight and sit 10th in the standings.

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He might not win Rookie of the Year or Sixth Man of the Year, but Nikola Mirotic is proving he will, given the opportunity, be a difference maker for a contender come May and possibly June.

With early production from Pau Gasol plus Jimmy Butler back in the lineup (and immediately back to playing 40 minutes), the Bulls controlled this one early. However, some uncharacteristically potent deep shooting from the punchless Hornets sent Chicago into the locker room actually trailing by one.

Chicago stemmed the tide in the third though, helped by Charlotte’s shooting falling back to normal. The game felt comfortably in control, though the Bulls weren’t quite putting their foot down to end the proceedings.

Here’s the part where things circle back to Mirotic, who, in Derrick Rose’s absence, has become the interim closer for the Bulls. He nearly matched his career high by pouring in 28 points, half in the final frame, marked by a three with just over 2:30 to play to put the Bulls up seven. Post-ups, fadeaways, it was all working. Even when it wasn’t, like when he missed a corner three, Gasol was able to grab the rebound and pitch it to Niko for a thunderous slam.

Chicago compensated for 3-16 shooting from downtown with just six turnovers, a season low, as the team improves to 14-4 when it turns the ball over ten times or fewer. Butler was just 6-20 but got to the line ten times, finishing with 19 points and nine boards. Aaron Brooks had one of his steadiest games of the year, posting 13 points and ten assists, while taking only ten shots and committing only one turnover.

Charlotte got 29 points out of Kemba Walker but the man who replaced him in his absence, a resurgent Mo Williams, was just 4-16 from the floor. Those two along with Gerald Henderson (11 points on 12 shots) were the only Hornets in double figures, as there was no miracle performance from Jason Maxiell this time around.

Getting a win while Joakim Noah rested was quite fulfilling, considering the organization seems to finally be preparing its higher gear for the playoffs, and with an ever-improving Mirotic leading the way for a deeper team it seems they might have the necessary talent as well.

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The Bulls already stole a game against Oklahoma City in thrilling fashion, and while they hung around in this morning’s game, there was never a sense that they were set to sweep the season series with a team that’s faced as many injuries as they have.

The first hour or so of action was par for the course of a Sunday morning contest, which is the NBA equivalent of Thursday Night Football. Combined, the two teams shot 0-14 from three in the first quarter. Pau Gasol was 6-10 in the opening quarter, with every other Bull combining to go 1-14. Chicago didn’t hit a three until midway through the second when Mike Dunleavy finally put one in.

All those misses provided ample opportunity for rebounding, and Enes Kanter gobbled up ten in the first, finishing with 18. Rebounding became a huge story, as the Bulls followed up getting demolished by a Charlotte team that was without Al Jefferson and Cody Zeller by losing the battle 52-33 in this game, despite OKC missing Serge Ibaka (and obviously Kevin Durant).

A flurry from Aaron Brooks and Nikola Mirotic earned the Bulls a tie going into the half. The third quarter was relatively even and the Bulls led by two with under ten minutes to play, but then Russell Westbrook returned and the game was effectively over. He shut the door on the Bulls with 14 points and three assists after re-entering, delivering the dagger on an assist where he found Anthony Morrow for an open triple, and for style points, rather than get intentionally fouled, he drove past every Bull coast to coast for a layup with such blazing speed that it looked like a slo-mo scene from The Flash. Continuing his amazing recent play, Westbrook finished with 36 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.

The loss was to be expected, so the story of the game turned into Tom Thibodeau’s quotes afterward, in which he again complained about minutes limits, this time about how it’s hard for him to manage minutes early for Joakim Noah while also wanting to use him to close the game. Noah’s minutes had been elevated, but now they are back in the low 30s, and to Thibs, a 32 minute restriction is like a 20 minute restriction.

The only real bright spot for the Bulls was Mirotic, who manages to score effectively even when his threes don’t fall thanks to his ability to get to the line. He was just 2-8 from beyond the arc but tallied 27 points on 8-18 shooting to lead the team.

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This certainly wasn’t a pleasant game to watch as a Bulls fan, but just about all of the bad elements were to be expected. Playing a Sunday morning game is hard and that’s before removing the extra hour due to Daylight Savings Time. The start time simply exacerbated issues like turnovers and transition defense that have plagued the Bulls all season long.

The Bulls appeared ready to get blown out early in the second half, but a flurry of plays from Nazr Mohammed (yes, you read that correctly) kept the Bulls hanging around and they kept it a 10-12 point deficit the rest of the way, with Tony Parker refusing to allow them to get any closer. Finishing with 32 points on 13-19 from the floor, Parker set aside some of the doubt that his lingering hamstring woes would derail San Antonio’s chances of getting to the Finals yet again.

Some Bulls had good stat lines, as Pau Gasol had 23 and 15, Aaron Brooks scored 22 on 7-12 shooting and Joakim Noah had his increasingly customary box score, this time with four points, 11 boards, nine assists and two steals. However, they scored just 39 points in the first half, and couldn’t muster the type of defense necessary to really make it a game despite a 38 point third quarter.

20 turnovers, with every key player contributing to the total, plus 5-15 shooting from three allowed the Spurs to wreak havoc in the open court, and they outscored the Bulls 35-9 in fastbreak points. While the Bulls were victims of some missed calls throughout the game, it really didn’t matter, as they were never a threat to win the game.

San Antonio made up for the first game without a field goal in Tim Duncan’s all-time great career with a balanced attack. Kawhi Leonard pitched in 20 on 9-20, and Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills and Danny Green all posted double figures.

The Bulls shooting over 50% obscures how sloppy they were offensively to go with their struggles on defense. The game stayed close for a while simply because the Spurs weren’t hitting shots. Nikola Mirotic got to the line nine times and scored 19, yet looked out of sorts and quite messy on the court. Doug McDermott had a nice three on an open look, but that was all from him. Kirk Hinrich again struggled with ball-handling. Tony Snell went scoreless in 29 minutes, missing all six shots.

The bad news is the Bulls play their fourth game in five nights tomorrow versus Memphis. The good news is that it is their last such stretch of the season, and they only have two back-to-backs after that for the rest of the season.

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Without Derrick Rose (knee), Jimmy Butler (shoulder) and Taj Gibson (ankle) against the Wizards the Bulls should have been in for a battle. The battle they did get was a physical, slow-paced, intense and oftentimes angry game of basketball that saw multiple players in foul trouble and Nene ejected after picking up his 6th foul, though he should have been out much earlier for a blatant hatchet job on a Joakim Noah shot attempt.

Nikola Mirotic led all scorers with 23 points, another stellar effort coming on just 13 shot attempts as he showcased his growing arsenal of moves – he scored in transition, in the post, on cuts and from behind the three-point line – while being active on defense and first to a loose ball that should have sealed the victory.

Speaking of Noah, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year has been on the upswing since early January and had one of his best all-round performances of the season with 14 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. His overall presence defensively forced the Wizards to miss a ton of shots and he reverted back to the offensive pivot he was last season when Rose was on the shelf.

Rose’s current replacement, Aaron Brooks (22 points, 8-23 FGS), proved yet again the Bulls front office and Tom Thibodeau can compliment each other well as he provided some huge offensive spark, utterly detonating the Wizards flimsy pick and roll defense play after play, at times enjoying 10 feet of space in the half-court coming off a screen. He did throw up some badly judged shots late in the fourth while the game was still close but it’s forgivable given his overall input.

The Bulls led most of the way in this one, fluctuating from double-digit leads to allowing the Wizards to make runs and close the gap. Each time though, Chicago would call timeout, regroup and tighten up the defense. This marked one of the better defensive efforts all year, though the Wizards play into the Bulls wheelhouse with their reliance on the mid-range game.

A quick word on Nene — the Brazilian forward struggled all night after getting into early foul trouble, was enraged by being outplayed by Joakim Noah and decided to make it known. He unleashed a vicious right-handed chop on a Noah layup attempt that barely avoided earning him an outright ejection. A few minutes later he executed a hip-toss on Noah to earn his sixth foul and ensure his night would end scoreless, 0-4 from the field in 21 minutes.

Aside from that, the game was a typical grind-em-out Bulls game where the offense actually looked decent. Funny how that always seems to happen when Kirk Hinrich plays limited minutes?

The Bulls improve to 38-23, a half-game behind Toronto for the second seed and a half-game ahead of the Cavaliers in fourth.

—- Other notes —-

— Doug McDermott played. Call off the search party. That said, he looked overawed by the situation, made some sloppy mistakes and looked overmatched athletically which should be the Bulls biggest concern. Hopefully a full off-season and no more injuries will let the Bulls take stock of what they have in McBuckets.

— This was the first time Nene had fouled out scoreless in 787 career games (including the playoffs)

— The Wizards are now 34-27 after starting 31-15, losing 12 of their last 15 games.

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When the Bulls mismanaged the PR portion of Derrick Rose’s meniscus injury and initially failed to note that it was likely just an expected maintenance procedure, the questions quickly turned from Rose’s career in a personal sense to “Can the Bulls trust Rose’s health enough to build around him going forward?”

After three games, the appropriate response to that question appears to be, “You got a better idea?”

The Bulls hung around for a while, even leading at times, thanks to what Mike Breen generously called a “defensive minded” first half, which was TV code for “it was horrendous.” It lived up to the billing of a Sunday morning contest, with both sides sleepwalking early, aside from Nikola Mirotic and DeAndre Jordan.

In the second half, Chris Paul got to the midrange jumper he loves time and time again, finishing with 28 points on 12-19 shooting, adding 12 assists and five rebounds. DeAndre Jordan had 26, yes 26, rebounds and managed to hit enough free throws to negate the effect of the “Hack-a” strategy.

Chicago’s offense again slogged their way through the entire game in Rose’s absence. Both Aaron Brooks (14 points on 17 shots) and Kirk Hinrich (0-7 from the floor, zero points, zero assists in 25 minutes) continued to be dreadful. Throw in Taj Gibson sitting with his ankle injury, Pau Gasol less than full strength after illness, plus Jimmy Butler leaving the game with a sprained elbow sustained during a hard screen from Jordan and it’s easy to envision an anemic attack. However, the decision making by Tom Thibodeau on how to support the offense continues to be puzzling.

Despite Joakim Noah having a strong game, Thibs left the ailing Gasol in during the final minutes and Mike Dunleavy was nowhere to be found in the fourth quarter even though the Bulls desperately needed shooting to make up the deficit.

The positives to take from this game were that Tony Snell continued to play well, making 3-5 triples to boost his percentage over the 40% mark. Noah had a strong performance (13/11 with six assists) and Mirotic had a career-high 29 points on 11-23 from the floor. Unfortunately, Niko was the only Bull to make a shot in the fourth quarter as the game slipped away.

Next for the Bulls is a big game with Washington, but we’ll have to see if Butler or Gibson will be able to play.

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