The Bulls bench outscored the Bobcats bench 45-29 — a stat lost on no one in the Bulls locker room. Slowly but surely, the new bench has rounded into form over the past couple months.

“It’s huge,” Noah said. “And I think that to get to where we want to get to we need everybody. It’s not about starters or bench (players), it’s us as a team. I think that a lot of guys have stepped up throughout this year and that’s the strength of this team is any given night Nate (Robinson) can really go off, Marco (Belinelli), Rip (Hamilton), Jimmy (Butler), everybody, Taj (Gibson). Everybody has a role and we just feel like we can even play better.”

With Derrick Rose likely returning in a few weeks and Kirk Hinrich headed to a reserve role, the bench is shaping up the way Tom Thibodeau believed it could over the summer.

via Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com