2021-22 Game Thread: Knicks @ The Hopefully Only Unbeaten Until Tonight Chicago Bulls

The Knicks head to Chicago to take on the unbeaten (until tonight, hopefully) Chicago Bulls in an fun early-season matchup of a 3-1 team and a 4-0 team. It’s fun when the Knick are one of those teams.

Nerlens Noel is out again tonight.

The Bulls put together a fascinating team. They have one of the best starting lineups in the league, but have very, very little depth. Hopefully the Knicks’ second unit will feast on them.

Let’s hope that Thibs wins one in Chicago!

ARE THE KNICKS STILL ON PACE FOR 56 WINS? Yes, my prediction is back on target!

As part of our all-poll content (which we all know is the reason for the Knicks’ turnaround since 2020), I’ll ask about the Knicks and Bulls’ top players…

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Let’s go, Knicks!

362 replies on “2021-22 Game Thread: Knicks @ The Hopefully Only Unbeaten Until Tonight Chicago Bulls”

I’m almost there if this damn bus could go any faster! I’ll be cheering for all of KB when I get there!

Also, I know that the way the NBA is trending a borderline All-NBA wing is much more valuable than a borderline all-NBA big man. That said, endowment effect in full effect here. Julius is such a fun guy to root for, and I’m very happy to have him.

silky rides the slow bus to the madhouse is the knickerblogger subtitle we never knew we needed

Again, I’ll be six rows behind the Knicks bench in a Knicks jacket, you may actually see me depending on the camera angle.

Is this potentially the most hyped Knicks/Bulls match-up since the 90’s?

Keen to see how swole Mitch fairs against Vecevic. Vecevic has usually bullied Mitch.

ptmilo:
silky rides the slow bus to the madhouse is the knickerblogger subtitle we never knew we needed

That’s quality.

I have never liked Lavine but he got better. Still picking Randle though because BING BONG!!!!!!!

Love how this is a thing

Is this potentially the most hyped Knicks/Bulls match-up since the 90’s?

The Easter game in… 2012? Was another time when both teams were relatively good and there was a ton of hype around the matchup. But other than that one, this is the most hyped.

julius has the exact same ppg as LaVine (25.5), but he almost has the same rpg as Vucevic (11.5 vs. 11.3), and has more than a full assist per game than Ball.

Good question. I very begrudgingly picked LaVine. It’s just so damn hard to find guys who can score at that volume and efficiency so I tend to think the smart move is to grab them when you can and figure out everything else (and Randle is better at everything else) after.

Bing bong!

Missed the live fun vs 6ers due to early wake but tonight IMReady
Let’s Do it!

LaVine is sexy but Julius is the Real Deal (when he’s not spinning or plays the hero)!!

Bing Bong! Enjoy, Silky. I’ll try to spot you. 😉 Oh, and voted for Julius, of course. Those 2 can’t be compared, Lavine isn’t a leader, i’m very happy to have Julius.

The most hyped Knicks Bulls game since the 90s was the game of a chicken that Phil Jackson played during the MegaMaxMelo negotiations. (The game was keep Melo from going to the Bulls at ANY cost)

Randle and Mitch look totally jacked in person jesus

love that play to start the game. basically every play we run meant to back foot the defense against a short court rj mitch pnr going left is a good play.

I don’t think Vuc really cares to try to stop Mitch from dunking so we should throw the ball in his general direction a lot

A good start.
Nobody defending Mitch.
Our new Frenchman is much better than the old one.

We look very sharp and the Bulls have no interior d whatsoever

Yeah, gotta wonder how good a of a D the Bulls can have with Vucevic on the floor…

I may have been slightly hasty in declaring the Bulls clowns.

Those were some brain dead offensive sequences

We seem to be penetrating fine, then decide not to lob to Mitch at the last second?!?!?!

Bulls have a shit ton of offensive weapons. But they’re so vulnerable inside, need to exploit that.

A game of runs, but we’re on top for now. Would like to see Obi wreak some havoc against their bench guys.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned too much but has been great is the Knicks’ balanced scoring. 8 Knicks have already scored tonight. That kind of balance is huge!

I wonder how close and late the game has to be before the Bulls fans stop cheering when Rose does something good. What if he hits a game winner?

The home broadcast is OK today. They’re very friendly to us, because of DRose, Taj and Thibs. 🙂

cybersoze:
The home broadcast is OK today. They’re very friendly to us, because of DRose, Taj and Thibs. 🙂

Don’t forget Noah is still on our payroll

Obi’s speed and ability corral the ball in transition is really something else

i’m glad they saw that ball shove on mitch. excellent pass on rj. mitch and rj in the pnr works.

Knicks not getting any calls tonight. They’ve been fouled a lot and no calls. 1 FT attempt with the amount of shots in the paint they have is a joke

This feels like the typical annoying game where we stay with them and eventually let their scrubs beat us. Expecting Caruso and / or Williams to go ham.

i may be the only one who can identify silky but i’m not watching msg. the knicks have two offenses: run an actual play or give it to randle and hope it goes well.

On a night when Randle isn’t shooting well, he’s doing a nice job penetrating and dishing

Good half. Randle isn’t forcing it despite struggling. Don’t have much in the way of recommendations besides try to abuse the PnR with Mitch when Vuc is on the floor.

ptmilo:
i may be the only one who can identify silky but i’m not watching msg.the knicks have two offenses: run an actual play or give it to randle and hope it goes well.

Does getting Randle in a mismatch and having him pass to Fournier for a corner 3 when the double comes count as a play?

Did they show a white guy with a mustache and dark brown hair in a Knicks jacket with a woman (his partner!) wearing a blue jacket and orange mock neck

Did they show a white guy with a mustache and dark brown hair in a Knicks jacket with a woman (his partner!) wearing a blue jacket and orange mock neck

Yup.

Silky was looking good on the feed!

Nice half either way, but I’m not feeling very confident, the Bulls defense really tightened in the second quarter and we don’t look like we have a clear way to counter it.

Bruno Almeida:
Silky was looking good on the feed!

Nice half either way, but I’m not feeling very confident, the Bulls defense really tightened in the second quarter and we don’t look like we have a clear way to counter it.

Sure we do… It’s called our bench!

Up 4 on the road vs the best team in the league ain’t bad!
One more please!

Don’t like this call, looked like Mitch went straight up and just happened to foul him

If Kemba keeps working on those threes he might one day be as good as Dennis Schroeder

Someone posted about how Kemba sucked the first three games of last year too and then broke out. That poster nailed it.

RJ would’ve been justified in starting a skirmish after the DDR foul but just burying them works too

This is why I prefer Julius over Lavine. Not scoring but has 10 rebs, 7 assts and tough D.

Z-man: This is why I prefer Julius over Lavine. Not scoring but has 10 rebs, 7 assts and tough D.

And he’s a leader

I know the Bulls have played well since the preseason, but what’s the real upside of this team? They trade a much of assets for Vucevic, who is 31. They are paying DeRozan $25m a year. LaVine will be very expensive if he stays. I don’t see a path for them.

Deeefense:
Is Kemba an upgrade over Payton on offense?

I’m asking for a friend.

If he hits 10 more 3s he passes Elfs total from last season

The great thing about a deep team is you can tire the other team out. Deep teams are probably a market inefficiency right now with all the super team bullshit going on.

marechal:
I know the Bulls have played well since the preseason, but what’s the real upside of this team? They trade a much of assets for Vucevic, who is 31. They are paying DeRozan $25m a year. LaVine will be very expensive if he stays. I don’t see a path for them.

Sign a MLE player every year and hope Patrick Williams & Ayo step up. Idk what draft picks they have left, but that might be enough to put together a contender. Doubt the make it to a favorite, but that’s not bad

Taj’s value goes up 43% with the new foul rules. Great defense there.

Great vintage footage of Clyde.

Pretty sure I just saw Silky waiving Knicks ball. He’s right next to the backboard, Knicks bench side of the floor.

As good as the Knicks are looking, there’s massive room for improvement. Like WTF was that at the end of the period? Rose with a bonehead turn over and IQ with an early misguided missile.

Early Bird: Sign a MLE player every year and hope Patrick Williams & Ayo step up. Idk what draft picks they have left, but that might be enough to put together a contender. Doubt the make it to a favorite, but that’s not bad

I don’t know, seems like a lot has to go right for them to be a regular low to middle seed in the playoffs. They don’t own their 2023 and 2025 first rounders, so the earliest first rounder they can trade is 2026.

Mitch walked on his own power to the bench, looks hurt (turned ankle) but not badly

Also said he needs New shoes

burks also pulling the disappearing act when needed…shit…he’s in there for offense

Need to pull out that small ball lineup for the end of the game tonight.

Z-man:
Silky,arethefansnotintothegame?

Also yeah, seems pretty tame for the gravity of the matchup/how good the bulls are. I feel like people are waiting for the run to dry up and are holding back because of that. But also nothing is close to msg so…

TheClashFan:
This Bulls announcing team is one of the better non-Knicks ones I’ve heard.

They’re usually pretty awful but they love Thibs so they’re being very complimentary towards the Knicks tonight.

Randle cant be this sloppy

Ball did not have the ball. No clear path?

Mitch is back which is nice.

Also, Rebecca Harlow has really matured into her role. Does a great job. Have to give her props.

Every time Randle touches the ball you are either going to get a very good play or want to trade him. smh

Minor miracle there hasn’t been a skirmish in this game.

This is a legit triple double, not a cheesy Westbrook one. Has had to grind for all of the assists and some tough rebounds in there.

Deeefense:
Every time Randle touches the ball you are either going to get a very good play or want to trade him. smh

Cmon dude he’s having a great game

kenna is admittedly a speed bump but for a weak defender he is in the right place almost all the time

Cmon dude he’s having a great game

might be overdoing it. he’s made our 3 worst defensive mistakes all leading to easy layups. 3 of his 4 turnovers have been really bad. he’s shot poorly. he’s also made some great passes, drew a lot of double teams and rebounded very well.

Randle is an idiot. We’ll never ever ever go all the way with this fool playing down the stretch of important games.

It is so annoying to watch this team down the stretch.

The offense gets bogged down and predictable having it run through Randle.

I am going to interrupt this disaster in progress to let everyone know Frank is a plus 24 tonight in a game where Tim Hardaway Jr is a negative 24

Please, can someone in the NYC media please call out our 4th quarter ISO-Randle offense in crunch time to Thibs’ face?

Anyone? Please….

Randle missed those free throws so I could get free portillos hot dogs I guess

Wow. Well.

We can join the Wizards at 4-1.

Good d on the final possession at least, very uninspired offensive set by the Bulls.

A win is a win, even if the other team closes on a 12-0 run.

No reason to change how we play at the end of games just because we have a lead. It baffles me.

That was a gross finish though. I don’t mind going to ISO’s to burn clock, but the defense up until that last play, giving away quick fouls when you’re in the bonus, just a really annoying 2 minutes

Guys down the stretch Fournier and Kemba missed as many shots as Randle, it wasn’t all ISO Randle down the stretch.

Greg Anthony is right: Randle 3of11 and the Knicks in the road against a good team and win.
Our back court is very good.

Tough teams don’t give up.
This was a tough game for the Knicks to win and they pulled it out despite Randle being off

What the hell was that… a win is a win I guess, but I’ll need some eye bleach to forget those last 3 minutes. Thank God DeRozan is there so we didn’t have to deal with LaVine taking a better shot.

That was a game we could have easily won by 20. So many dumb mistakes throughout and then that ending. Not sure what it says about our team but whatever, they are highly rootable.

but I agree with al…the whole starting 5 took the apple at the end.
.but Randle missing that gimmee putback was inexcusable

DeRozan chooses to take it himself against RJ rather than give it up to LaVine against E4. That is not the right call.

BigBlueAL:
Guys down the stretch Fournier and Kemba missed as many shots as Randle, it wasn’t all ISO Randle down the stretch.

You mean the miss a shot after not even touching the ball for entire sequences in the halfcourt sets.

Seriously, I’ve always been a Randle supporter, but I can barely watch this guy play basketball anymore. Every time he touches the ball I cringe. He makes some good plays and plays really hard, but he does more dumb things per game than I can tolerate.

I do appreciate that Randle is much less stubborn on the nights when he’s off than some of our previous alpha dogs have been. He knew his shot wasn’t falling, so he spent a lot of tonight drawing the double team and kicking it out to shooters. Dude can play on my team. I’d just like him to make his free throws at the end.

You guys are unbelievable, we played great for most of the game against an undefeated team on the road, had a very bad last 3 minutes and played great D on the last possession to win the game.

Nerve racking yes, but news flash, we won!

Barrett excellent D on the last shot bails out Randle almost giving the game.

But make no mistake we were the better team this game. We made boneheaded 4th quarter mistakes (again) and need to lose the iso Randle offense during that time but we exposed the Bulls. They have no interior D and the offense looks very one on one.

I would like less blown leads, thanks!

Alan:
I do appreciate that Randle is much less stubborn on the nights when he’s off than some of our previous alpha dogs have been. He knew his shot wasn’t falling, so he spent a lot of tonight drawing the double team and kicking it out to shooters. Dude can play on my team. I’d just like him to make his free throws at the end.

Also missed two to ice that preseason game that went to double OT. Guy is a bit fragile.

BigBlueAl

The problem is NOT Randle’s missed shots. Everyone chokes an occasional important FT and has occasional rough nights shooting. It’s the endless dumb shots, dumb passes, forcing himself into impossible situations that lead to TOs, dumb decisions etc.. He’s a very low basketball IQ player. This can’t be the guy closing games for you.

I am glad Wally (diplomatically) called Randle out for having to be The Hero in the end of games.

We seemed better than Chicago in almost any area but Closed the game amateurishly.
Not thrilled but definitely satisfied

It’s hard to fault them for going to Randle in the post against Ball, but Randle needs to get better shots than he did. Once it was clear Randle wasn’t getting those shots, they should’ve changed it up.

The guards carved up the Bulls defense, should’ve stuck with that offense.

On another note I hope Quickley doenst have too long a leash with his awful shooting. Doubt Grimes would have been any worse than him the first 5 games

Well those last few minutes were decidedly not pretty but beating them at home is a damn good win. Randle definitely let the 2019-2020 version come out too much but some of the criticism here is overblown. He had some absolutely essential assists. That free throw situation was obviously not good but it is what it is.

The offense was stagnant but the defense was pretty poor in the last two minutes too. Felt like the Bulls scored or were fouled in 5-7 seconds every damn possession.

Hope that’s a learning opportunity.

the craziest mistake was that stupid fucking hail mary inbounds we somehow got away.with

On the plus side, no way we win this game without Kemba. His offense has come around quickly.

RJ also looked better on offense. It kind of sucks for him that he has more or less become the 4th option. It’s a good problem for the team to have, but it feels like he may get lost on some nights. I guess as long as they are moving the ball, whoever has the best matchups will get the shots, but I really wanted to see him break out on both sides.

Was at the game tonight. Great experience. Bulls fan were super cool. The Noah stuff was gross. Chicago people love Rose, chanting MVP even though he’s on another team. Randle choked yet again. It’s a problem. He need to understand he’s a top 25 player, not a top 5 player. Mitch beasted. Without Kemba we lose this game.

Randle only took 11 FGA and his final attempt was missing a wide open putback off crashing the offensive boards. He had 4 turnovers but also 9 ast and was 7 for 10 from FT line. Randle is getting the Ewing/Melo criticism.

BigBlueAL:
Randle only took 11 FGA and his final attempt was missing a wide open putback off crashing the offensive boards.He had 4 turnovers but also 9 ast and was 7 for 10 from FT line.Randle is getting the Ewing/Melo criticism.

+1000 it’s ridiculous

RJ’s defense on the last play looks even better now that I’ve seen the video again. Really good game from him today.

Barrettcuda

Wally says some crazy things, but he knows enough to not just look at the game stats. Certain plays are more impactful and critical. The decision making on those plays has to be good. I don’t care how many assists and rebounds Randle had. The last guy I wanted to have the ball down the stretch was Randle. This is not a single game phenomenon. It’s been a problem since he came here. I’ve always excused it because he had no help. But this team is loaded. If you miss you miss. No big deal. But you can’t keep putting yourself into impossible situations and then turn the ball over or take an extremely difficult shot when you have all this firepower on the court with you. You move the ball and take good shots.

BigBlueAL:
Randle only took 11 FGA and his final attempt was missing a wide open putback off crashing the offensive boards.He had 4 turnovers but also 9 ast and was 7 for 10 from FT line.Randle is getting the Ewing/Melo criticism.

It’s pretty clear everyone on this board loves Randle (except for maybe one guy), but he IS often a mess out there handling the ball. And he DOES seem to have some issues with pressure — witness last year’s playoffs and missing four game-icing FT so far this year. So it’s not wrong to hope he can improve these things. He’ll get there.

Yeah, we should celebrate RJ.

It’s hard to run the whole game back in my head but there is no doubt in my mind that Julius did a bunch of really dumb stuff.

He had an offensive rebound with 14 seconds left and he awkwardly put it back up and missed, leading to a transition three for the Bulls. He could have dribbled that to the three point line and killed six seconds and gotten two free throws.

That’s really an incredibly boneheaded play.

He wasn’t terrible, he rebounded well and did have some good passes, but overall he was very very frustrating.

Yeah, Randle only had 11 FGA and a bunch of them were low quality shots where you’d say the defense won the possession even if the shot went in.

Owen: Yeah, we should celebrate RJ.

More of this for sure. RJ had a great game overall plus clutch D on the last shot. He was due.

Seem like all ten of our players get on the board these days before anyone is even in double digits. That balance is unheard of in the last two decades. Let’s ride it.

Let’s get this straight. When everyone here hated Randle his first year, I was the one guy here that defended him endlessly because he was in an impossible position with no space and no help on offense. With his skill set he had no chance to play to his potential. Now it’s the complete opposite situation. He has Kemba, Fournier, and RJ on the court and he has better 3 ball. He should almost never drive into a wall or force a bad shot or pass anymore. But he’s still doing the same nonsense. I don’t care how many shots he takes or if they go in or not. Those forced plays should almost never happen anymore unless it’s very late in the clock and he got the ball very late.

Thibs’ post game comments were good. He’s taking the long view (play your best the 2nd half of the season), knows they are still feeling their way, but likes their resilience, grinding and finding ways to win. #perspective

DE’ANTHONY Melton picking up where he left off last night… (…still time to facilitate a few triple doubles, I suppose)

Knicks fans can’t be happy lol. We are 4-1 and beat an undefeated team on their homecourt and bash our best player. Randle definitely had a couple brain farts (that put back layup vs dribbling it out was most offensive), but to say he’s a dumb basketball player when he was all-nba and an all star last year five games into the season is crazy. The coaches need to fix iso Randle down the stretch, and the biggest issue was giving up 12 points in 2 mins on the defensive end.

A Knicks fan just said “bing bong” to me on the bus it was completely unexpected lmao

Deeefense:
Let’s get this straight. When everyone here hated Randle his first year, I was the one guy here that defended him endlessly because he was in an impossible position with no space and no help on offense. With his skill set he had no chance to play to his potential. Now it’s the complete opposite situation. He has Kemba, Fournier, and RJ on the court and he has better 3 ball.He should almost never drive into a wall or force a bad shot or pass anymore.But he’s still doing the same nonsense. I don’t care how many shots he takes or if they go in or not.Those forced plays should almost never happen anymore unless it’s very late in the clock and he got the ball very late.

No argument from me about Randle’s forced shots (at all). I hate watching them. BUT — I also know he’s the main reason we’ve had a lot of success of late, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt (partially in thanks) and hope he can improve on exactly what we’re complaining about. Growth mindset 😉 — he can’t hit late game free throws … yet. He can’t hit threes in the playoffs … yet.

And I do notice (as I’m sure you do too) that he’s made some quality reads this year and passed out of double teams for some easy buckets. He’s not a lost cause. He knows what to do. He just doesn’t always do it … yet.

I really don’t know why and maybe i shouldn’t but i felt worse by Mitch’s “fragility”-goofiness than by team’s last mins collapse.

Game started as a dogfight.
Kemba and RJ gave us a 10plus lead.
It seemed like an easier than thought win.
But….
We managed to turn it into a Hitchkock thriller.

We’re really good but we need a few adjustments as all nba teams during the start of the season.

I do think we maybe give Randle more credit than usual because even though he has evident flaws in his game, he just tries so fucking hard every game. Like we watched Marbury and Melo and others make terrible selfish decisions, miss dumb shots or create turnovers and act like they didn’t give a fuck or barely try, but Randle does give a fuck, he’ll still be there grinding. He should be criticized when he’s playing badly, yes, but I understand the defensive stance and I do feel a bit defensive about him often because of that.

We have an entire season to get those bad plays down the stretch out of his system, he’s come a very long way from the guy who arrived in NY 2 seasons ago, there’s no reason to believe he can’t do it. He still keeps making some good assists, he still rebounds, he still tries on defense, and at this point in the season that’s enough for me, honestly.

Still have a generally good feeling about this team only thing is that it feels like Mitch might go down for a month after every fall.

– mitch is doing good for a guy who didn’t play for awhile and likley wasn’t supposed to be starting and logging big minutes right away….wtf with Noel…now there’s a fragile guy

– randle is a warrior but thibs needs to sprinkle some more magic coaching dust on him to get him to next level..

– that 2nd unit w/o rose would be dicey…he holds it together…if iq continues to shat the bed…grimes is gonna get a looksie…i expect more from burks as a supposedly vet influence…that inbounds crap at the end of the game was shaky and obi is still very hit or miss but when they are all clicking it is a nice unit..

– glad that rj showed well tonight…good sign that he appears to play tough on the road…need that if we are going to go deep in the playoffs…

–

My only request by Mitch is Concentrating on safe landings after his jumps. Ain’t always easy but it’s crucial in order to play.
The rest are secondary.

DE’ANTHONY Melton picking up where he left off last night… (…still time to facilitate a few triple doubles, I suppose)

when you guys finish season 5 of moonlighting in 2031 and you’re permitted to start catching up on basketball reruns you are going to be dolefully confused about how the box score could have led you so astray on this lovely evening of melton

Of the sports where they play at least 80 games, is there any sport that freaks out about early results more than the NBA? The Lakers being 2-3 is seen as this huge deal when that’s not even close to being a worrisome record five games in.

Brian Cronin: the

Yeah but it’s less about the record and more about how they’ve played. If they are completely healthy towards the end of the season and playoffs then yeah it may be overblown, but right now they’re pretty bad on both ends of the floor

If Lebron is hurt they just aren’t a great team. AD and Russ is not a championship core.

Not hating that Randle putback attempt. Knicks literally just needed 2 more points to put the game away completely. If that goes in, the Knicks have time to get back on defense and it never gets as tense as it got in the last couple possessions.

I will say one thing — Chicago had 2 very good defenders and 3 bad defenders on the floor. Caruso/Ball are probably a top 10 set of defenders at point of attack in the league, and Ball did a really admirable job basically going 1-on-1 with Julius in the post. Caruso is really good on defense period. And yet we constantly went at those two without even trying to get the other 3 (especially Derozan) involved. We didn’t try to get a switch – ie. run a Julius/RJ inverted PNR. I’d much rather have Julius posting against Derozan or LaVine than Ball, regardless of the size difference.

It’s fine to have Julius go against a perceived mismatch, but why not pick a better mismatch? Lebron has made an entire career of those — because it works when you need a big bucket.

They did go to the Julius/Evan DHO but he just missed the 3.

Re: the Lakers — KCP was a huge part of that championship team in the bubble. Harrell and Kuzma are real NBA rotation players. It’s not so easy to replace those guys with vet minimums. The 3 Amigos model is dependent on the 3 all being great — trouble is, Lebron is definitely aging, missing more and more games due to injury. Russ is just not one of those guys. And AD is a 2nd best player, not a 1st best player. I’ll prob eat crow on this in 6 months, but I have trouble believing the Lakers will make it past the 2nd round.

Pretty crazy east standings now. But we should remember that Cleveland was the best team in the league the first 5 games of last season or something. So much basketball left. But you have to feel pretty good about where the Knicks are right now. And Julius has not been all that good yet.

I’ll prob eat crow on this in 6 months, but I have trouble believing the Lakers will make it past the 2nd round.

Maybe we will both eat crow, but I agree with you anyway. Last year they were a play-in team that lost in the first round. I’m really not sure they are better than last year’s Lakers. They did gain Westbrook, but I don’t think he helps that much when the big three are healthy. And does his offense make up for their lack of defense when they only have a big two? I don’t see why they won’t be a play-in team this year too.

Washington on the other hand, could be decent this year. As I’ve said before, I think they are underestimated, and they are certainly doing better than expected so far.

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