Raptors sleepwalk past Bulls 112-103

Present day situations of both teams be damned, few things are as cathartic as watching the Raptors beat the tar out the Bulls. In a way, it’s even more satisfying to watch this uber-talented Toronto squad crush this injured, directionless, Wayne Selden-starting ass Bulls team than it would have been if they were standing on similar ground. Maybe that sounds a little sick. But the torment the Bulls wrought upon the Raptors’ house for nearly half a decade engendered enough sports hate in my soul to make me okay with the kind of outright exertion of power upon the weak we saw in the Raptors 112-103 win over the Bulls Tuesday night.

Outside of extending their run of wins over Chicago to eight (crazy, right?), Toronto checked off all the things you’re hoping to see from the team as it kills time before the games matter again.

No horrific injures: check! At least, I think. OG took an elbow from a person called Brandon Sampson, who is not a real person, with 4ish minutes left in the game and walked off a little woozy. Best wishes to OG.

The starters looking good and comfortable together: hell yeah! All but Siakam finished with positive double-digit plus/minus marks.

Minutes management? No one played more than 30. Good on ya, Nick.

Other than those key benchmarks, there is really no need to dive into the particulars of this game. It was entirely the result you’d expect from a game between a the fully healthy, trying Raptors and the injury-crippled, tanking Bulls. Instead of boring you with talk of defensive execution and the ups and downs of the Bulls’ deficit, which fluctuated between 10 and 20 all night, here are the tweets that best sum up what happened at Scotiabank Arena.

While tonight’s game was beyond analysis, it was still a quirky sort of fun! The team may be in run out the clock mode, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy this season’s garbage time. Things like Chris Boucher chase down blocks and Jack Armstrong drinking tales and arena-wide “BRUNO!” chants happen in otherwise meaningless moments. What’s beautiful about basketball is that joy can be derived from even the lowest leverage moments. Norm Powell had 20 points on 8-of-10 from field. Siakam swapped jobs with Lowry to hit his point guard with a gorgeous outlet bounce-pass at one point, too. Those parts of the game were cool.

With an upcoming schedule littered with opponents that ain’t very good, it’s those little moments of bliss this team can conjure that Raps fans will have to hang on to and cherish until the playoffs get going.