They seem to be totally engaged now, the Chicago Bulls, fully aware of their vast potential yet appropriately annoyed with themselves for only occasionally flirting with it the first 50 games of this season. Third place in the Eastern Conference is neither a terrible place to be nor something the Bulls should be satisfied with going into the 28-game post-All-Star sprint that will tell us whether they are the serious contender they are talented enough to be or anything less, which would be a massive disappointment.

They are coming off a first 50 games that include wins over the Warriors, Grizzlies, Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Spurs, Rockets and Raptors and losses to the lottery-bound Lakers, Magic, Nuggets, Celtics, Pacers and Kings. There are conflicting signs everywhere you look when it comes to the Bulls. They are the second-best road team in the Eastern Conference but the worst home team among the top 15 teams in the league.

Some of it can be directly linked to having played so few games, 20, with the preferred starting lineup of Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Mike Dunleavy, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol. Some of it undoubtedly can be linked directly to Rose, after missing essentially two full seasons, having to work his way back physically while at the same time figuring out how to play with a dramatically different team than the one he led in 2011-12. Some of it has to do with Noah slowly (wisely) playing himself back into form after summer knee surgery and not being close to last season's first-team all-NBA level. And some of it has to do with working in a terrific player but a different one in Gasol.

They've had 54 games to do it, and now they have 28 to show they can put it all together in time to be ready for the likes of the Wizards, who have had their number going back to last year's playoffs; LeBron James and the ubertalented Cavaliers; a skilled and underrated Toronto Raptors team; and an Atlanta Hawks team that has beaten the Bulls twice this season while confounding pretty much the entire NBA.

Learning to play with Pau Gasol has been one of many adjustments for Derrick Rose this season. Mark L. Baer/USA TODAY Sports

There's nothing to suggest the Bulls can't beat any of those teams in the playoffs if they play the way they did in beating the Spurs, Mavericks and Warriors in a four-game span at the end of January or in the four games leading up to the All-Star break, including the win over Cleveland. The question now, beginning with the resumption of play Friday night in Detroit, is how urgently the Bulls perceive all this and how capable they are of doing something about it.

No matter how much the Bulls rationalized the need to patiently approach the season, whether it was Rose finding his way, incorporating Gasol or not rushing hastily back from injuries, even they were making themselves crazy with their wildly inconsistent play.

Asked during All-Star Weekend what finally kick-started the Bulls the week before the break, Butler said candidly, "Losing. We didn't like that. We couldn't like that ... and the way we lost those games, as many as we lost and the way we lost them. It just wasn't fun, the way we were playing. It hurt more."

Butler's recommendation for how to start this final third of the regular season isn't complicated and would probably go a long way toward the Bulls chasing down Toronto to finish second to Atlanta in the Eastern Conference.

"We need to be ready to play and not be lackadaisical," he said. "I think we know what we have to do."

As has been the case for the past seven years, it all begins with Rose, who played far better through those first 54 games (appearing in 43 of them) than reasonable people should have expected. Rose shot too many 3s, turned the ball over too much and steadily increased his minutes, his impact and his understanding of how to incorporate Gasol and a dramatically improved Butler and how to play with another shooting point guard in Aaron Brooks, all the while figuring out what his knees will or will not tolerate after serious injuries and so much downtime.

The four-game stretch Rose just finished was probably his best since 2012. His per-game averages of 20.8 points, 48.6 percent shooting (26.7 percent on 3s), 78.6 percent foul shooting and 7.2 assists to 1.8 turnovers is close to ideal, particularly when you factor in the way he has figured out new ways to effectively attack defenses without returning to his reckless ways from 2008 to 2011. The Derrick Rose from 2011, who thrilled people to no end, is necessarily gone. The Rose we saw during the past four games picks his spots to blast to the basket since he is still capable of doing so, runs the pick-and-roll with Gasol, plays off the ball some with Brooks on the floor and gears down to let Butler take the offensive lead for stretches.

Expecting Rose to maintain those four-game averages is a bit much, but if he can remain healthy (has played 16 straight games and 27 of 28), his next 43 games, which would take him 15 games into the postseason, figure to be consistently better than the 43 to date.

The other concerns then kick in. Noah's health is nearly as critical to the team as Rose's. Butler and Gasol have to continue playing at an All-Star level. Tony Snell is going to have to spell both Butler and Dunleavy, which would reduce the pressure on Nikola Mirotic to contribute heavily, especially if he's hit the rookie wall. There's certainly no reason, given the way Snell has played recently, for Tom Thibodeau not to trust him, which would help keep Butler's minutes down and energy up by the time the playoffs begin.

What the Bulls have to have learned during their weird two-thirds of the season is that they can beat the best teams in the league, even on the road, when they put all these concepts together. They are the team best equipped to make LeBron work overtime defensively in a series (having to guard Butler, Dunleavy and Snell). They are the team in the East best suited to exploit Atlanta's lack of size and a real rim protector.

They are also, based on what we saw the first 50 games, the team most likely to sit back and admire their work after they have approached the level of play that should characterize a serious contender. That, above everything else, is something the Bulls can control, and that -- "playing angry," as Rose likes to call it -- is as much what will determine their fortunes as any of the other crazy, unpredictable factors that come into play these next two months.