Knicks 110, Bulls 92: This team is a bunch of noodles

Run away win for the Knickerbockers this fair evening. Chicago hung tight in the first half and Christiano Felicio quite certainly got busy in the third quarter but so did Tim Hardaway. Timmy busted through the defense and took it to the house, then started blasting shots like rockets, breaking the whole game open with it’s arm out the socket. After failing to crack 20 points in the first quarter, New York wound up slapping down 91 over the next three frames en route to the rout.

The city that never sleeps was full of teams that people rightly sleep on.

This mattress factory was replete with unfamiliar names on the jerseys and slanted skill sets that didn’t work in conjunction with one another. In the game thread, jacoop said “This team is a bunch of nobodies”. I didn’t know which team they were referring to. So I willfully read it as “This team is a bunch of noodles”. I’m not opposed to calling somebody a nobody. But if I can’t even identify which somebody is a nobody, I’d prefer to identify everybody as a noodle. It’s a little more playful.

Mostly I’m just a very enthusiastic advocate of calling people noodles. Used to be heavy in my rotation. It’s a good non-threatening dig. Not quite as cutting as calling someone a “bird”. Yet still affords one the ability to characterize another person as a good old fashioned dummy. Feels that way anyhow. As an aside, lately I’ve been calling people “dirts” and “goofs”.

See that goof in the street? He’s at the corner, yea. That noodle is a full blown dirt.

The lyrical miracle, Trey Burke, put this tumultuous poultry dish through his spherical spiritual slam poetry periscope:

“That’s all I ask for.” Oh, the oomph! The dissonance! That ellipses is a snap-snap-snap through time eternal. Are we looking into the mirror? Or is our reflection mimicking the frailty of our ego? The DEVIL changed I-and-I to you and I.

Anyway. Michael Beasley was probably the closest to being a household name for the casual NBA fan. The Bulls dressed and rested Robin Lopez. Not to mention their best players, Zach Lavine, Kris Dunn and Lauri Markkanen, didn’t even travel to New York. Kristaps Porzingis is regenerating in his incubation unit. Frank Ntilikina and Damyean Dotson are scarcely allowed playing time. So I guess I understand. Beasley it is!

To the notes...

• Bulls announcer Neil Funk said Emmanuel Mudiay “looks like an eighth grader” when he shoots. He had just bricked the dimples off a wing three.
• The game was so ragged in the early going that I thought it might give me a seizure. Both teams had huge swaths of unforced turnovers off senseless passes. One by Mudiay from 3/4 court sailed into the crowd on the opposite baseline. It looked like a tenth grader threw it.
• Squeezing lighter fluid into the flames, New York had several finesse layups firmly rejected at the cup.
• Cameron Payne was kinda pulling the Knicks apart like string cheese in the pick and roll. There was still more cheese to be had but the Knicks’ defense was starting to look thin. Eventually they dared Cam to shoot them out of it. And well, the Knicks won by whatever it was.
• No Ron Baker for the Knicks tonight means no way to have a Cam-Ron quip in the recap.
• Tim Hardaway had a brutal first half. In one quick stretch he had his front pocket picked by Justin Holiday, aggressively clunked a bad pull up three, and got caught with a five-second violation inbounding on the baseline. Tim still ground out a +12 (da Bulls) in his 19 first half minutes despite shooting 2-8 (1-6 from deep) and having no cases at the charity stripe.
• Second half Hardaway was a totally different player. Tim ran it down the gut and converted two and-1’s, then planted a rhythm three and dusted off some of that Bug juice we saw earlier in the year.
• Chicago’s Antonio Blakeney blocked the absolute smithereens out of a Kyle O’Quinn slam attempt. I mean. He splattered that tomato. Naturally, Kyle didn’t let that aggression stand, man. He whopped Blakeney on a dunk attempt later on, picking up a little flagrant foul in the process. The two smiled about it after an official review. Kyle has a great smile and a beefy branch that I would NEVER want to be clubbed by. I’d smile it off too.
• Mudiay was playing with pretty good energy despite rolling on the floor lapsing on transition defense a few times. In one run of defensive high jinx Mudiay dove to tap the ball past one Bull and over the head of another to an open teammate in the Knicks’ frontcourt but he didn’t get enough of a finger on it so Chicago recovered and Emmanuel came up gimpy right away. That’s whyyy...
• Frank Ntilikina got 16 minutes in the second half! He didn’t do anything outright mind altering, but no reason to stop liking this kid. Eight points on eight shots is bad, but he led the team (tied with Trey Burke) with five assists, stole it once and generally made it tough for Bulls to get good looks. Why he was stationed on David Nwaba deep in the corner most of the time is not my expertise.
• So let’s just skip ahead into this defense leading to offense. He bottles up some noodle. Nobody stops the ball, so Frank just eyes all the passing lanes as he probes further in and eventually scores the easy little slipper at the tin.

• Right now, for Jeff Hornacek, Ntilikina is the belt with the two hoops that you couldn’t undo when you were a kid and you have to go. I can’t wait until Jeff buckles and plays the kid 16 minutes in both halves of every game. Until then, in my eyes, the Knicks will continue to piss themselves.
• Luke Kornet’s heavy hooves are still trying to cut off those driving lanes to contest at the rim. One time he took a running Bull square in the chest and it bumped him so far off his spot that Noah Vonleh just huffed and stuffed on Luke’s scrunched up body. Later Luke got caught jumping on a Paul Zipser up-fake, leading to an easy drive and dish to Bobby Portis for a dunk. Then he was unsure whether to close out or brace for the drive and a little Portis jab step left Big Bobby wide open for a triple and he cashed it. Kornet does stretch the floor on offense and like a natural shooter he keeps letting it fly. The snap back of that rubber band was an unpleasant ping on this clabbered affair.
• Troy Williams got a few things going late in the first half with a dunk and a block. So naturally Jeff Hornacek pulled the plug on him.

• There was some extremely sloppy Troy passing too. It led to at least two turnovers and several near turnovers. If there’s good to be taken from it- these are mistakes of aggression. He’s trying to whip some sneaky passes around the floor and the Bulls just happened to be on it tonight. I like that he actively seeks his teammates. Pretty ugly nonetheless.
• Isaiah Hicks had a good game or whatever I guess. Nine points on nine shots, 1-2 from deep, eight rebounds and six fouls. He got the exit interview with Rebbecca Haarlow. I must admit I was somewhat relieved when he fouled out.
• All I wanna see is Damyean Dotson and Frank Ntilikina. And Troy Williams. And Kristaps Porzingis. And the lamp and the paddle game. And that’s all I want.
• The first half was really hard to watch if you didn’t have to. It was like cat juggling. Not certain if we’ve touched on that yet.

• Yo. Christiano Felicio got a few buckets of barbecued chicken to start the third quarter. Feasting on Enes Kanter! Up, over and around the Turkish delight. 11 points in the first 3:30 of the third. I thought the Knicks had a chance to lose for a moment. It was Christiano Felicio though. O’Quinn subbed in for Kanter and quickly blocked Felicio. Then picked his pocket on a subsequent post up. That was that.
• Clyde says “Deltord” instead of deltoid. A deltord to the mouth for Troy Williams as the Bulls rush to stop a fast break. Deltord. Scorebort.

More Knicks junk as it comes up. If anything comes up. Maybe nothing will happen. Tune in to find out. Until then...