If you had to name three elite talents on the Chicago Bulls, your list might look something like:
Alex Caruso's defensive IQ
Lonzo Ball's transition passing
Zach LaVine's dunking
It's a fun collection of tools on one of the NBA's most overhauled teams entering this season. And then the trio showed them all off on the same play, forming one of the highlights of the year:
It's just so effortless@NBCSChicago | @ZachLaVine pic.twitter.com/iO8vjW9KMk
That whirlwind of very good basketball was the exclamation point of a 117-107 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. LaVine led all scorers with 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting, while Ball had 21 points, six rebounds and six assists and Caruso had 16 points and six steals.
The win improved the Bulls' record to 7-3, and the team continues to look like a legitimate Eastern Conference playoff team. In addition to the trio above, the Bulls have DeMar DeRozan averaging 26.9 points per game on .596 true shooting and center Nikola Vucevic averaging a double-double.
The team is a legitimately fun one to watch, with five different players averaging more than 3.5 assists per game and each providing his own set of unique skills. Now, it embarks on a particularly tough stretch of schedule, with games against the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks over the next two weeks.
If the team can emerge from that stretch with a few more wins, the hype will only continue.