Serious When It Mattered

The Knicks escape with their second straight OT win against an inferior opponent.

Good morning! Another stress-free Knicks win, huh?

Game 55: Knicks 113, Bulls 111

• OG sat out, joining Hart and Mitch in street clothes.

• This one started ug-ly, with 40 combined points in the first quarter behind some truly wretched offense.

• The Knicks had a 9-for-11 shooting burst in the second but otherwise shot 9-for-44 in the first half, with KAT and Bridges particularly cold.

• Towns erupted in the third but New York’s defense crumbled, allowing 38 Bulls points as a seven point halftime lead was cut to two.

• A tight fourth saw the Bulls pull ahead late, but a Brunson bucket tied it up before Mikal Bridges sent the game to overtime with a game-saving block.

• Another big defensive stand helped New York hang on in the extra period despite some poor execution in the final minutes.

I thought about making this a shorter postgame wrap up than usual, for three reasons:

1. I’m still on vacation.

2. I had to watch that game, which was quite enough.

3. It’s the first game after the All-Star break, and the Knicks were missing two starters. As far as drawing meaningful conclusions goes, we can and probably should take the entire 53 minutes of basketball, toss it aside, and be happy with the win.

Can and should…

But of course, we won’t. We’re fans. That’s not how we’re built. Kvetch I may, kvetch I must.

Would you have liked to see the Knicks emerge from a week off and look like a team with real designs on a title run, even with some key pieces missing? Absolutely.

Did we get that level of performance? Absolutely not.

That they fell short of that mark isn’t worrisome by itself. It’s how they fell short that has me making a bigger deal of this game (which, by the way, they won!) than I have any right to do.