Knicks continue to roll as they rout Bulls for sixth straight win
CHICAGO — The sample size is growing and the Knicks are showing no signs of slowing down.
Forget the season-long six-game win streak or even the seven wins in nine road games. Dating back to Nov. 15, the Knicks have played 16 games, and won 10 of them. Three of the losses, to quality teams in the Trail Blazers, Bucks and Grizzlies, could’ve gone either way.
Tom Thibodeau’s team is hitting its stride. The most recent example came Friday night, in a 114-91 shellacking of the talented, but underperforming Bulls, the Knicks shaking off an uneven first quarter by out-scoring Chicago by 26 points over the final three quarters. Prior to the game, Thibodeau warned his players of how hard it would be to complete the sweep in this rare two-games-in-three-days set on the road, comparing it to a postseason series.
“When you look at playoffs, it’s the intensity of playing the same team over and over,” he said before the game. “You know exactly what they’re trying to do. So then it’s how hard you compete, it’s imposing your will.”
The Knicks imposed their will Friday night, much like they have so often over the past five weeks. They crushed the Bulls on the glass for the second time this week, beating them on the offensive glass, 15-2. They forced 20 turnovers. They received hot-shooting nights from their starting backcourt of Jalen Brunson and Quentin Grimes — the duo each had 22 points and combined to hit 11 3-pointers — and led by as many as 30 points in the fourth quarter.
“That backcourt, I love the way our perimeter is playing right now,” Thibodeau said.
He included RJ Barrett in that. Barrett shook off a poor shooting start to score 27 points and Julius Randle added 19 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three steals in the one-sided victory. With the win, the Knicks moved to three games over .500 at 16-13 for the first time this season.
When asked if it feels like the Knicks are the hottest team in the Eastern Conference, Thibodeau joked: “I’m not taking the cheese.”
He added: “This game will have nothing to do with Sunday’s game, so the important thing for us is to not feel too good about ourselves. … Usually, [when] you start feeling too good about yourself is when you get knocked on your butt.”
Late in the final quarter, with the game well in hand, Thibodeau inserted Derrick Rose and the crowd went wild for the former MVP and longtime Bull. The building exploded when Rose hit a 3-pointer in his first minutes since the Knicks’ last loss, Dec. 3 against the Mavericks.
“I’m just blessed that we played a great game and it allowed me to go out there and play,” said Rose, a Chicago native.
Zach LaVine led the Bulls (11-17) with 17 points, but their other stars, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic, combined for just 23, 19 below their cumulative season average.
Barrett started the third quarter with a scoop layup that hung on the back of the rim for a few seconds, before falling in, a positive omen for both him and the Knicks. They quickly pushed their lead to 11, turning defense into offense when a Brunson steal led to a Grimes layup that forced a Bulls timeout.
The lead ballooned to 16 after Grimes scored five straight points a few minutes later, leading to light boos from the United Center crowd. They grew louder early in the fourth quarter, when Miles McBride went coast-to-coast for a layup after a steal, pushing the lead to 18. It got even more lopsided from there, the Knicks not just beating the Bulls, but lapping them in the second meeting between the two teams in three days.
“I think guys are building chemistry with each other,” Thibodeau said. “That chemistry is on both sides of the ball.”
