Knicks beat the Bulls 105-113 on April Fools at the Garden

With a Madison Square Garden close to full capacity in spite of their worst season in history, the New York Knicks have defeated Chicago Bulls 105-113, stripping a six game losing streak.

Boxscore

In a game that had nothing to do with an almost forgotten rivalry, the Bulls had one of their most awkward starting lineups of the season with names such as Walt Lemon Jr., Shaquille Harrison, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot or Wayne Selden Jr. If it hadn’t been for veteran Robin Lopez, we could have mistaken the Bulls for a G-League team.

On the other side, coach Dave Fizdale decided to rest two of his starters (Mario Hezonja and DeAndre Jordan) and insert Luke Kornet and the block machine Mitchell Robinson instead in the starting lineup.

And this proved to be an extremely effective decision as all of Knicks’ starters finished in double figures, a rare performance for New York.

Kornet led his team with a career-high 24 points (his previous being 23), six rebounds and three blocks. He also shot awesome from the field, going 8-11, including 5-7 from behind the arc.

Kevin Knox started the game extremely well, putting 11 points on the scoreboard while shooting 4-7 from the field in the first quarter but he faded as the game advanced. On the remaining three quarters he added just 8 more points and shot 2-8. He did grabbed 9 rebounds and was this close of finishing in double-double.

Damyean Dotson, however, is having one of his best seasons and his improvement under coach Fizdale’s system can easily be seen. Dotson has turned into a ferocious sharp shooter and dropped 18 points against Chicago, all of them from behind the three points line, missing just one of his seven attempts.

Emmanuel Mudiay contributed with 17 buckets and Robinson had 14 points and 10 boards. The rookie also added 3 blocks to his stats and now he sums a total of 150 with five games left to play. He now owns the franchise record for the most blocks in a season by a rookie and didn’t have a block-less game since December 12th. That’s 34 straight games with at least one block!

The Knicks went hard from the start on the Bulls and set the largest lead in the second quarter when the score was 31-59. The Bulls, led by Lopez, who finished with a game-high 29 points, worked on a comeback and cut the lead to just five points with under eight minutes on the clock but couldn’t do more and admitted defeat.

Jakarr Sampson scored 22 points off the bench and Ryan Arcidiacono added another 14 for Chicago, who fell 21-57.

The last time the Knicks defeated the Bulls was on March 19, 2018.

The season is coming to an and soon and if fans were to make NBA playoffs predictions, then these two teams are nowhere near the board.

The Knicks, who now improved 15-62 continue to lead the Zion Ball with the worst NBA record and only a terrible accident would make them lose the first chance of winning the lottery.