Bulls 109, Knicks 90: "It's been garbage time since the end of the first."

It's funny, because the Knicks didn't even play that badly after the first quarter. That opening frame was a parade of unmitigated surrender. They just gave the Bulls the ball and let their crap offense score at an elite rate. The Knicks caused a bit of trouble with moments of zone defense while generating spurts of genuinely crisp Amar'e-Melo-Tyson cohesion on the other end, but it didn't matter. While New York's Very Bad is horrible, their Not That Bad is still pretty bad. Joakim Noah prodded every fault in the Knicks' defense, and since the Bulls wouldn't give them Jimmer Fredette until very late, the Knicks made a Jimmer Fredette out of D.J. Augustin (23 points, including 4-5 from downtown).

The Bulls only committed three turnovers as a team. They rebounded 14 of their 45 misses. They hit 37% of their threes and got to the line 33 times. This is one of the worst offensives in the league. The Knicks deserve some sort of humanitarian award.

So yeah, like EmLar said at the time, this game's garbage time started very early on. New York got their sucking done promptly. They're efficient like that.

22 more games.