Bulls news: Zach LaVine delivers harsh reality after finally accomplishing elusive feat

Chicago Bulls star Zach LaVine has finally won four games in a row, but he knows there's a lot of work to do after nearly blowing win No. 4.

Chicago Bulls All-Star Zach LaVine has finally won four consecutive NBA regular-season games. He did it for the first time in his career on Monday night against the Toronto Raptors.

However, LaVine wasn't in a chipper mood after the game. After all, the Bulls nearly blew a 20-point second-half lead thanks to their offensive sloppiness down the stretch. While the Bulls are now 4-0 and the only undefeated team left in the Eastern Conference, the star shooting guard knows there's a lot of work to be done when it comes to closing out games effectively and becoming a truly great team:

Chicago is incorporating a number of new pieces into the lineup this season, so it's no surprise that there have been some growing pains in crunch time. The Bulls have been able to pull out a couple of close wins already, but they haven't exactly been pretty. Monday's game featured some especially mind-boggling turnovers from LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso.

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Luckily for Chicago, former Raptor DeMar DeRozan came to the rescue. DeRozan had 11 points in the fourth quarter, including two huge mid-range buckets to help stem the tide as Toronto made its ferocious comeback attempt. The veteran showed why the Bulls paid a hefty price for him, exhibiting a calming presence on the floor as his teammates committed panicky mistakes.

Like LaVine, though, DeRozan knows Chicago has a long way to go, via The Athletic's Darnell Mayberry:

“It doesn’t mean nothing,” DeRozan said. “We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a lot more to clean up, to learn. It’s a long season. It’s great, but we’ve got a lot more basketball to go. We’ve got to move on to the next game. We can’t carry this record like it’s some type of badge of honor. We got to understand the next game is going to be even harder.”

The Bulls are 4-0 for the first time since the 1996-97 season, which resulted in a championship. Chicago likely isn't a championship team this season, but showing growth and making the playoffs after years of suffering would be a big plus.

The schedule is about to get much tougher for the Bulls, so we'll see what they're made of coming up.