CHICAGO – The Golden State Warriors were involved in one of the biggest trades of the season this past week, and they now have Jimmy Butler because of it. Butler made his Warriors debut on Saturday night against the Chicago Bulls, and he did not disappoint. Butler finished the game with 25 points on 7-12 shooting, and the Warriors ended up leaving Chicago with a dominant 132-111 win.
The NBA world was eager to see how this Warriors team was going to look with Jimmy Butler out on the floor for the first time, and it was an impressive product. Butler obviously isn’t familiar with his new team yet, but that didn’t show on Saturday night.
“I don’t know him [Jimmy Butler] at all. I would imagine at least from what I’ve heard of him, the guy was probably in the gym all day long working out and getting ready even though he wasn’t able to play and he was waiting for this,” Bulls head coach Billy Donovan told the media after the game. “I’m not surprised, you know, with his competitiveness and him coming ready to play. That’s the one thing that I’ve always heard about him is that he’s an incredible worker and obviously his competitiveness shows.”
Butler was a big part of this win, as he and Steph Curry both had huge games for the Warriors. The Bulls actually got out to a big lead first as they were up 83-59 with 8:30 to go in the third quarter. The Warriors closed the game on a 73-28 run. The script was flipped and Golden State was dominant for the majority of the second half.
Both the Bulls and the Warriors are currently in 10th place in their respective conferences, but if Golden State continues to look like this with Jimmy Butler, they are going to win a lot of games down the stretch.