Chicago Bulls: Zach LaVine’s 5 best games of the season

5. Jan. 10 vs. Indiana Pacers

If you look up the advanced stats for this game on Basketball Reference, you’ll see that LaVine finished with a game-high 15.3 Box Plus/Minus (BPM) in this early January matchup against the Indiana Pacers; the next closest Bull was rookie guard Coby White with 1.6. That tends to happen when you score 43 points and your other non-White teammates don’t tally more than 13 apiece.

That’s not to absolve LaVine from his role in this 116-105 loss: he finished with a minus-12 for a reason. As has become the norm with him, LaVine’s defensive lapses — like when he let T.J. Warren get off to the races for a transition layup following a Kris Dunn miss or when he seemed confused as to whether he was supposed to switch on this ball screen — contributed to the Bulls allowing the Pacers to shoot 57 percent from the field, but his big scoring night on 14-for-23 shooting kept his team in a game they had no business being in.

Most of LaVine’s points came via him elevating over opponents and hitting jumpers, but he also took advantage of any lanes the Indiana defense gave him:

And he hunted for contact to garner seven free throw attempts:

But ultimately, his 8-for-13 night from behind the arc lifted his scoring totals and this offense.