And so it ends for the Chicago Bulls in the NBA playoffs; with a whimper of an effort to stay alive against the Boston Celtics, and mainly plenty of memes noting how pitiful they looked the moment Rajon Rondo went down with an injury.

And to think the Bulls didn’t just lead 2-0 with two wins on the road to start the series, but they also made the #1 seed in the East, the Boston Celtics, look completely miserable and clueless to the problems the Bulls were presenting them with. But then Rondo got injured, and everything went to s*** for the Bulls.

From a broader perspective, this isn’t a disaster for Chicago. They were huge underdogs going in as the #8 seed, even as a tough #8 seed. The team has showed there is something to lean on heading into next season, with quite a lot of cap space, although some of it is needed to re-sign Nikola Mirotic, who remains an inconsistent enigma – a frustrating one mostly, but very talented nonetheless.

For the Celtics, it’s a move on to the next round that will be difficult, facing a strong Washington Wizards team that isn’t that big of an underdog moving forward. The Bulls? It’ll sting, especially knowing it could have gone down very differently, but unless they suddenly decide to pull the trigger on a Jimmy Butler trade, there’s reason to believe we’ll see the Bulls in the playoffs next year too, perhaps after a less inconsistent season.