Sometimes it really is about how you start rather than finish. Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks proved that and then some on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
A fantastic first quarter from the Knicks set the tone for a Wednesday waxing of the Chicago Bulls, one where the defending champions put up a 135-105 victory. The Knicks (4-4) moved back to .500 with the win and busted the Bulls for the second time in eight days.
Having come back from a 19-point deficit in last week’s win in Chicago, the Knick headliners ensured that no such heroics would be necessary this time around: Brunson, fresh off a 38-point effort in the prior Bull battle, got the ball rolling with a 22-point breakout over the opening dozen alone.
The Knick captain had entered the game shooting just over 39% from the field, his lowest in a seven-game stretch since some of his early days with the Knicks in the fall of 2022. But Brunson was there to erase a very early 6-4 deficit, going 8-of-10 from the field including 4-of-5 with an extra point on the line in the fateful first that proved to be one of his period outputs.
Brunson wound up outscoring the Bulls on his own in the opening frame, as Chicago countered with an 8-of-25 success rate that saw no man score more than four points. Josh Giddey and Jalen Smith sank threes to counter four points from spot starter Landry Shamet (in for an injured Josh Hart) but proceeded to miss its next 20 attempts.
With the Knicks up 43-21 after the opening period and the lead never dipping under 30 after a Mikal Bridges alley-oop found Mohamed Diawara, historic housekeeping accounted for the leftover drama at MSG.
OG Anunoby sank a career-best 11 free throws while swiping three steals next to 18 points while Karl-Anthony Towns needed just five shot attempts (hitting all of them) to keep his streak of season-opening double-doubles alive. With eight in eight (earning 17 points and 12 boards on Wednesday), Towns is just the fourth Knick to start a season that way next to Charles Oakley, Willis Reed, and Walt Bellamy, who holds the record at 13.
Off the bench, Jordan Clarkson posted another double-figure game with 10. With a reverse lay-up in the second quarter, Clarkson moved passed fellow former Utah Jazz star Thurl Bailey for the seventh-most bench points in NBA history.
The Knicks also welcomed ex-Los Angeles Laker Dalton Knecht to the metropolitan ledgers. Knecht got on the board in style, putting back a crowd-pleasing dunk off a Shamet miss exactly a minute after he took the floor for the first time.
Knecht also served as a footnote in Knicks history: his last-minute triple gave the New York 84 first half points, tying a franchise record that has stood since 1988. The first-round pick from 2024 made the most of his extended opportunity, ending the day with 10 points and seven rebounds. The 84-52 halftime lead was also historic, as it also marked the first time that the Knicks scored at least 40 points in each of a game’s first two periods.
Thus continued the struggles for the Bulls (1-7), who lost Smith to a hand ailment in the first half. Tre Jones and Jaylin Sellers each led the way with 14 points off the bench on a night where rookie headliner Caleb Wilson has just five points on 2-of-12 from the field. Chicago has now dropped six straight as it works through a bizarre schedule stretch that has it exclusively playing the Eastern powers from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
New York wraps up its three-game season series with the Bulls on Dec. 1 at United Center. In the meantime, the Knicks will go for their first three-game winning streak of the season on Saturday night when they hit the road to face the Cleveland Cavaliers (8 p.m. ET, MSG/NBA TV).
