CHICAGO – The Bulls didn’t look ready to reignite a rivalry until the final three minutes.
By then, it was just a little too late.
The Knicks avoided an epic collapse when DeMar DeRozan air-balled a potential game-winner at the buzzer of New York’s 104-103 victory Thursday over Chicago.
The Knicks had squandered a 13-point lead with three minutes remaining, and Julius Randle missed two free throws with five seconds left that would’ve avoided the last-second dramatics.
But then DeRozan dribbled into a double-team, double-pumped, and didn’t come close on the final shot. The Knicks, as a result, spoiled Joakim Noah’s party in the United Center.
The Knicks (4-1), who are now tied for first in the East, didn’t need a big offensive game from Randle, who was active and nearly notched a triple-double with 16 rebounds and nine assists but also finished with a season-low 13 points. Kemba Walker (21 points) and RJ Barrett (20) paced the offense with a combined 41 points.
The Bulls (4-1), despite their late-game spirit, trailed for the entire second half of their season’s first defeat.
For the Knicks, there was yet another Mitchell Robinson scare. The starting center, who only recently returned from a seven-month absence while rehabbing a broken foot, turned his right ankle and fell to the court in obvious pain. It was the same foot he fractured last season and the impact of Thursday’s ankle turn was so powerful the sole of Robinson’s sneaker ripped apart. But he returned just minutes later and finished with nine points in 29 minutes.
Meanwhile, the Knicks were again without Nerlens Noel because of knee soreness, although coach Tom Thibodeau keeps teasing the center’s impending return. Depth at center feels necessary with Robinson’s penchant for injuries.
The atmosphere in the United Center was both an ode to a better past and a look into a brighter future. Thibodeau, Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson — all key members of the Bulls’ only sustained positive run about a decade ago—received big ovations from the crowd. Rose even heard ‘M-V-P’ chants as the visitor.
The nostalgia hit overdrive Thursday because the team honored Noah, who brought with him several former Bulls teammates, most notably Luol Deng and Carlos Boozer.
But it was also a rare meaningful game between the Bulls and Knicks, or as meaningful as possible so early in the season. The Bulls, a mess of a franchise the last four years, constructed a win-now roster with three recent All-Stars in the lineup — Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic and DeRozan. They entered the night undefeated.
The Knicks are also surging upward with last season’s fourth seed to serve as the new bar. It stimulated memories of the most famous rivalry in Knicks history, when they battled (and mostly lost to) Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the 1990s.
“They’re both two great basketball cities, so there’s great appreciation for the subtleties of the game,” said Tom Thibodeau, who was a Knicks assistant from 1996 to 2004. “Hustle plays, the extra pass, the effort plays, the togetherness, the teamwork, the discipline. I just remember how fierce the games were. Back then, there were a number of great rivalries: the Chicago-New York one, the Miami-New York one, New York-Indiana. That was a great time in the NBA. Every night was a big game, so hopefully we can get back to that.”
The Knicks did their part Thursday.
