Bulls vs. Knicks: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 Regular Season
From an individual perspective, Derrick Rose's regular-season return to the NBA was a mixed bag. He looked sloppy and at times self-conscious offensively and made a few mental errors defensively, relying on his teammates to pick up the slack.
Luckily, the Chicago Bulls now have the cavalry to do just that.
Pau Gasol had a double-double (21 points, 11 rebounds), and Taj Gibson led the way with 22 points off the bench as the Bulls ruined the New York Knicks' Madison Square Garden opener with a 104-80 win.
Rose, playing a regular-season game for the first time since suffering a torn meniscus last November, had 13 points on 3-of-7 shooting in 21 minutes. Tom Thibodeau kept his minutes to a minimum in the second half when the game got out of hand. The 2011 NBA MVP added five assists and got to the free-throw line eight times, a promising sign heading into the rest of the season.
"Noah and Rose aren't have particularly good games. Butler is out. And the Bulls are blowing up New York. I feel good right now.
— Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) October 30, 2014"
Still, this was a night where Chicago would have been A-OK without its star player.
Using its treasure trove of bigs to its advantage, the Bulls out-rebounded New York 47-38 and had 10 offensive boards. Gasol, playing in his first game since coming over from the Los Angeles Lakers this summer, was accountable for four second chances. The Spaniard looked right at home on both ends of the floor, oscillating back and forth between the two big positions with ease.
Knicks president Phil Jackson, who coached Gasol with the Lakers and tried to recruit him to New York this summer, said his all-around game will be a boost on both ends in Chicago.
"In my coaching tenure, he made a wonderful difference with that team, liked to play, liked to pass, liked to combine with his teammates and enjoy the game and the city and was a person the fans really took to in Los Angeles. I think he'll be the same in Chicago," Jackson told Sam Smith of the Bulls' official website.
The underrated byproduct of Gasol's arrival is that it allows Gibson to stay in a sixth-man role, in which he looked overqualified Wednesday night. Active on both ends of the floor, Gibson was the leader of a brilliant bench effort, making 10 of 12 shots and grabbing eight rebounds. Chicago's second unit was at time reminiscent of the 2011-12 "Bench Mob," with Gibson providing the rim protection while Doug McDermott and Aaron Brooks controlled the perimeter.
Brooks, the latest in a line of Thibodeau reclamation projects at point guard, had 13 points and six assists off the bench.
McDermott, one of two high-profile Chicago rookies making their debut Wednesday, finished with 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting. The former National Player of the Year already appears to have the respect of NBA defenses, as the Knicks defenders largely stayed at home whenever he was in the game. Nikola Mirotic, the highly touted Spanish import, had five points and appears to be the clear fourth big in the rotation.
The Bulls bench outscored their counterparts, 55-37, as New York's talented offense struggled to get anything going. Jason Smith had eight points, but microwave scorers J.R. Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. combined for 13 points on 4-of-18 shooting. Smith has had a particularly frustrating couple of weeks, shooting 33.9 percent during the preseason and struggling to grasp Derek Fisher's triangle offense.
"Being the type of player I've been, it's a struggle," Smith told reporters last week. "I'm not going to lie."
The Knicks as a whole seemed still in the infancy stages of the triangle, an intricate offense popularized during Jackson's tenures in Los Angeles and Chicago. Possessions were often highlighted by a lot of listless passing, stagnating before leading to a contested mid-range jumper. One of the most prolific three-point shooting teams during the team's 54-win campaign two years ago, New York shot made only three of its 17 shots from long range.
"We've had some conversations with J.R. and a number of our guys," Fisher said, per Scott Cacciola of The New York Times. "It's an instinctive game, and our players haven't gotten to that point yet."
Carmelo Anthony, who spurned the Bulls this summer to re-sign a five-year deal in New York, had 14 points in his season debut. Anthony, like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant before him, is expected to have relative autonomy to break out of the triangle. At least for one night he appeared unwilling to do so, taking a relatively low number (13) of shots.
Amar'e Stoudemire (12 points, eight rebounds) was the only other Knicks starter in double figures. New York shot 36.5 percent as a team.
The Knicks and Bulls each opened their season without a key starter. Jose Calderon was a surprising scratch with his lingering calf injury, while Jimmy Butler will miss at least the next two weeks with a sprained left thumb, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.
The Bulls, as has become a yearly tradition, replaced one of their staples with Kirk Hinrich. Second-year guard Shane Larkin received his first NBA start in place of Calderon. Both turned in nondescript performances, with Larkin finishing with six points and Hinrich 12.
It's unlikely either player would have made a difference before the despondent MSG crowd. For both teams, opening night seems like a statement on where the respective franchises are in their development. Rose's return to the floor came and went with a forgettable stat line, and the Bulls' infrastructure didn't miss a beat. Anthony didn't show up and his team got The Reaper.
We'll have to see if this is a sign of things to come or a case of overreaction theatre. Given we're a single game into both teams' seasons, it's probably a little bit of both.
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
