CHICAGO -- This is the way it's supposed to look for the Chicago Bulls.

For one night, in a 95-86 win over the Utah Jazz, the Bulls checked off all the boxes on GM Gar Forman's end-of-season to-do list. Young players, like Bobby Portis (career-high 22 points), Denzel Valentine (his first double-double) and Michael Carter-Williams (finished the game at plus-17) played well and gained some confidence. Jimmy Butler scored 23 points and helped push the Bulls across the finish line as he continues to play with a group of unproven youngsters. Most importantly, the Bulls found a way to beat a quality opponent and inch closer to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, just a game and a half behind both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat.

It was a feel-good evening for a tired Bulls team playing their fifth game in seven nights. Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg decided to shake things up by taking Portis out of the starting lineup and inserting Niko Mirotic, who was inactive for a loss to the Boston Celtics last Sunday. Portis repeatedly said he wanted to do what was best for the team, but he also acknowledged he would rather start. He took his demotion and used it as motivation -- exactly what Hoiberg wanted to see.

"I talked to him yesterday, I talked to him again today and just told him I wanted to change the flow and get him back coming off the bench and get that confident hard-playing guy who's going to go out and throw his body around," Hoiberg said. "And when you do that and worry about the little things, go out there and rebound and screen and hit guys, your offense tends to come. I thought Bobby went out there and played the right way, and good things came to him."

Hoiberg said after Saturday's game that he would keep the starters the same in Tuesday's game against the Toronto Raptors, meaning Portis would come off the bench.

"I play good in one half, and in the next half, I don't play as well," Portis said, "so the biggest thing with me is trying to put two halves together, just try to play a complete game."

The consistency that has eluded Portis this season is the same thing that has haunted the young Bulls. Carter-Williams, Valentine, Paul Zipser, Jerian Grant and Mirotic have all struggled, like Portis, to find their way in this up-and-down season. Hoiberg has tried to mix and match pieces, but in listening to the young players, it seems as if they'd rather just stick with one group and see how it plays for a while. Hoiberg played 12 guys in the loss to the Celtics and 11 the next night in a win over the Charlotte Hornets. Valentine noted that a solid confidence base is harder to maintain when you're not sure if you'll stay on the floor or not.

"If you're thinking about when you're going to come out, you're not going to play the same," Valentine said. "But if you realize that you can play through mistakes and get a second chance, you're going to play more confident."

Butler, who went through his own struggles as a younger player while trying to find minutes in Tom Thibodeau's rotation, echoed those sentiments when asked what it means to young players when they know they're not going to instantly get taken out of a game, or in some cases the rotation, after a few mistakes.

"Confidence," Butler said. "Whenever you're out there and you're playing, say what you want to say, but when you know you can make a mistake and you don't got to look over your shoulder, it helps. I'm not going to lie to you. It does. I tell everybody: 'Eventually you're going to come out of the game, so you might as well go out there and just hoop, just play. If [Hoiberg] takes you out, oh well.' Let's just say you make this bad shot, or get a steal whenever you gamble, maybe you get to stay in a little bit longer."

Portis and Valentine were the biggest beneficiaries of that confidence in this much-needed win. Valentine entered the fourth quarter having made just one of his first eight shots. He proceeded to knock down three 3-pointers in the final 12 minutes. After one particularly big jumper late in the fourth, Valentine unleashed a primal scream toward the crowd and was instantly surrounded by some of the young Bulls.

The bond that the young players have formed has helped them throughout the emotional last few months.

"It's been big," Portis said. "Last year I was the youngest guy, I didn't really have a guy that was like in my range to hang out with and things like that, so it was different from last year. Obviously, this year there's a lot of guys around the same age. We just try to stay together. We always go out to eat together. We hang out a lot. We go over to each other's house to play cards a lot. We have a great bond together. That's been the biggest thing with us, hanging out a lot on and off the court. That's made us a really special young group."