The New York Knicks took no bull from Chicago on Friday night.
New York took an early lead on the hapless Chicago Bulls and never looked back, leading wire-to-wire en route to a 136-96 shellacking at Madison Square Garden. With the win, the Knicks (50-28) have hit the half-century mark in wins, doing so in three consecutive seasons for the first time since 1992-95.
Missing Karl-Anthony Towns (elbow) was no problem for the Knicks, who were once again paced in scoring by OG Anunoby. Seven three-pointers to tie his career-best led the way to a 31-point night while Mitchell Robinson, in place of the injured Towns, had a double-double by halftime and got to leave work early with 17 points and 11 boards.
Jalen Brunson also got in on the double-double fun with 17 points and 10 assists. Three different Knicks had a plus/minus of at least 30, led by Anunoby, Josh Hart (tied for the team lead in boards with Robinson), and Jeremy Sochan, who earned six points and rebounds each with two steals in a rare night of extended work.
The Knicks handily handled business against woebegone Chicago, one of several teams throwing elbows in the draft conversation.
All but one of the first 21 points of the game went into the Knicks’ column, as the hosts rewarded the early arrivals with several highlights, including a Robinson alley-oop from Anunoby before the tenured center transformed a Josh Giddey turnover, Chicago’s fifth in the first five minutes, into a fastbreak that ended with a Mikal Bridges double.
Chicago finally got on the non-single board with a Collin Sexton triple, but the Knicks refused to relent. A Brunson floater at the buzzer created a 22-point lead at halftime, and the advantage never dipped under 20 after Landry Shamet put back his own miss to put the Knicks up 42-21 with just 95 seconds gone by in the second.
That started a run of 16 straight Knick points that ran past the midway point of the period, and a trio of triples from Anunoby created the first two-score advantage.
None of the Knicks’ starters played the fourth quarter, but those who stuck around did get to see another victorious finisher from Tyler Kolek, who posted a mini-showcase of eight points (two of which created the Knicks’ largest lead of 47) while playing with the rest of the deep metropolitan subs.
Every Knick that partook got in the points column as New York posted its third winning margin of at least 40 points this season, setting a new franchise record.
Long resigned to its dire fate, Chicago (29-48) dropped its sixth in a row and its 23rd in the 28 games since the February tipped-off. Sexton was the one Bull with a somewhat proud box score in a game where they never got closer than 32 in the second half, hitting five threes off the bench on a 19-point night.
New York won the four-game season series with the Bulls by a 3-1 final, after dropping the season opener in October.
The Knicks will play their last road game of the regular season on Monday night against the streaking Atlanta Hawks (7:30 p.m. ET, MSG/Peacock).
