I'm very tired and a little ticked off with this loss so this edition of Final Tape will be short and sweet. And to be honest, there's not a whole lot to say here. We got off to a great start but then the inevitable happened. The Bulls defense tightened up like it always does and we had trouble hitting shots. It was a very physical and dicey game with lots of technicals, as usual. Eventually the Bulls climbed back into it late and finished us off in overtime. The Knicks go an embarrassing 0-4 against the Rose-less Bulls this season.
Great start
As mentioned, we started off the game red hot. At one point we led 22-6. And we withstood a couple of small Bulls runs to hold onto a 8-12 point lead for the 2nd/3rd quarter until we ran out of gas and collapse. A large portion of this great start was due to our three point shooting (of course) off great ball movement. BTW, we set an NBA record for most 3 pointers in a season, which if I'm being honest is not really a record I'm proud of.
Felton
Ray-Ray looked pretty good tonight. Other than a couple of plays where he erratically drove to the rim and 2 seconds into overtime where he fell to the floor clutching his knee. It initially looked bad but he got up and said he's alright. We have to wait and see if that's actually the case. Felton finished with 19 and 6 on 8-17 shooting and once again did a nice job of penetrating the defense en route to the rim.
The Bulls are in sole possession of 5th place
Meaning if things stand as the way they are, we wont have to play them until the Conf Finals, if they even get that far.
The Bulls still have our number
Ugh. We really just dont match up well against them. They are too physical and with this small jumpshooting lineup we have, that just doesnt work well for us. Their defense tonight wasnt as impressive as our previous matchups (missing Noah and Gibson may have something to do with that) but they still came up with some defensive stops when they needed to. Melo had 36 and 19 rebounds but he took 34 shots to get that. Deng and Butler played him well and were very physical with him as they were all season. Yet another reason why it's best to avoid the Bulls all together in the postseason. 7 games of that physical play would really wear down Anthony.
Nate Robinson
We did not have an answer for him tonight. A lot of it was him hitting 3 after 3 but he also got to the rim at will. He had 35 points off the bench. And he's kind of a prick now (sorry, watch)
Living and Dying by the 3
Tonight was the perfect example. In the first half or so (mainly the 1st quarter), we were feasting on the 3 ball, helping us build a big lead. But when Chicago started chipping away at it, we couldnt hit anything from beyond the arc. It's the way we've been playing all season, and it's been effective for the past couple of weeks but it just didnt do the trick tonight.
In James Singleton we trust?
We're right back at it tomorrow against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The streak is now over but there's still work to be done. We need to lock up that no. 2 seed and I really wish we could have done that earlier because every time a player hits the floor, I shit my pants. Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice easy win so that we can start resting some of our guys.
great job writing the game up as usual. You guys have all done a marvelous job, I still think you should get more exposure in the game thread or the knicks forum....
