Jimmy Butler said he’d score 40 points against the Lakers and then went out and did it

Chicago Bulls wing Jimmy Butler is one of the best players in the NBA, so most expected him to have success against the Los Angeles Lakers. Scoring 40 points on 23 shots was still more than most predicted. Well, most except Butler himself.

“He told me before the game -- ‘Coach, I'm going for 40 tonight,'“ Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg told Nick Friedell of ESPN. “And he did it."

Without Dwyane Wade on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, the Bulls would need all 40 of Butler’s points to escape with a narrower-than-it-looked eight point win. But apparently Butler knew that before the game, and planned accordingly.

Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen. You can listen to plenty of talk about the Lakers’ loss to Butler and the Bulls in our latest episode below: