Bulls 108, Knicks 101: "This is brutal."

It's not much fun watching the Knicks these days. It is, like stingy d said, a brutal experience. The Raymond Felton injury is really crippling the spread pick-and-roll, and poor shooting and questionable lineups don't help. Pair all that with a poor defense and you've got a pretty repulsive basketmeal.

Again, even accounting for the absences, we saw some truly flatulent basketball tonight. Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni ran the pick-and-roll feebly, shooters whiffed everything, and Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith consumed the rest of the possessions by shanking isolation jumpers (though it was mildly encouraging to see Melo heat up late). The defense-- especially with Tyson Chandler slacking and Amar'e Stoudemire seeing minutes (including down the stretch, which continues to not work)-- somehow looked even sleepier than usual, and any halfway decent possessions got shot down by the obnoxiously accurate Luol Deng. So many mindless switches and doubles, so many late close-outs, so much grief.

It was pretty much identical to the last Bulls game, except half the team didn't get booted before a small lineup made its meaningless comeback. New York's got a gift for single-digit blow-out losses to Chicago, I guess. Point differential!

Three straight regular season losses for the first time in the Mike Woodson era. Two straight regular season home losses for the first time in the Mike Woodson era. On the other hand...

LOOK AT IT. JUST LOOK AT IT AND FORGET THE KNICKS! ALL IS WELL!