Bulls starters send a message, and that included Patrick Williams

There was life from Patrick Williams on Wednesday.

Maybe not No. 4-overall-draft-pick life, but needless to say it was better than the usual flat-line performance from the Bulls forward.

A 4-for-5 shooting night for a season-high 10 points, as well as some sturdy defense in the first half.

Not that the Bulls needed much heroics for Williams in the 124-109 win over the 1-4 Indiana Pacers, but big picture? A needed positive.

Dissecting the emptiness of Williams’ stat lines has been a far too frequent occurrence through the early part of this season. As has asking coach Billy Donovan just how long he planned on marching Williams out there with the starting lineup.

Hint: Williams is pretty safe.

“I think you’re always going to evaluate what the team looks like,” Donovan said. “I do believe Patrick is an important part of our team. Want to help him get going.

“I think with his athleticism, his size, his strength, his ability, I just think there’s enough there for him to get himself into the game. He’s such a team guy, wants the team to do well and wants to fill his role, but there is a point too where it’s got to come from within him. He’s got to be the one to bring it out. I can talk to him, the assistants can talk to him, his teammates can talk to him, but ultimately I find that as guys get into the league after a period of time it really becomes like this self-driving, motivating thing – and I don’t want to say that Patrick’s not motivated – but the aggressiveness part and what everybody has talked about, some of that has to come from within.”

It didn’t hurt Williams’ cause that while his minutes have been cut down, he did work well with the starters on Wednesday, especially in his first-quarter stint.

He came out aggressive and looking for his shot, and it was contagious, as the Bulls jumped all over the visiting team, outscoring them 38-27 in that opening stanza.

Thanks to Donovan’s new-look bench rotation of Andre Drummond, Derrick Jones Jr, Alex Caruso, Goran Dragic and Zach LaVine, that lead was up to 24 by the second quarter, as the Bulls scored 76 points in the first half.

That marked the most scored by any Bulls team in the first half since they put up 81 back on Apr. 14, 2008, against Milwaukee.

But as good as the Bulls offense looked in the ball-moving department in those first two quarters, it wasn’t sustained. Fault the defense for that.

Indiana’s Buddy Hield shot his team back into the game, and rather than being able to get out and run off of Pacers misses, it was a group that suddenly found itself inbounding the ball after Hield makes and slowing down.

With 2:51 left in the third, the Bulls’ lead was just four.

Then it was as if they remembered this was only the Pacers.

Thanks to Ayo Dosunmu’s aggressiveness at the rim in the last four minutes, a 10-point game once again stretched into a laugher. LaVine finished with a team-high 28, while all five starters scored in double figures.

A strong sign that Williams will be right back with the starters Friday in San Antonio.

“I do think that with it being early in the season, taking four or five games and saying, ‘OK, we’re scrapping this.’ you never get a chance to see and maybe get enough information to make those decisions,” Donovan said. “If it’s a situation where let’s say the first unit is struggling or we need to change rotations, I’m not opposed to doing that. I think everything should be evaluated all the time.”