The Chicago Bulls got run off the floor at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, and Jalen Brunson made sure the Knicks wasted no time turning it into a rout. New York led by as many as 44 points in a 135-105 win, with Brunson needing just 28 minutes to pile up 33 points.
For Chicago, the silver lining is a three-day break before Sunday afternoon. The problem is the record keeps getting uglier at 1-7, and the next two opponents are the Philadelphia 76ers and San Antonio Spurs.
Brunson set the tone immediately. After finishing the Bulls off with 14 points in the fourth quarter of their last meeting, he picked up right where he left off and helped New York attack Chicago the way Chicago wanted to play.
The Knicks pushed in transition, got downhill, and kept finding the rim. Brunson had 22 points in the opening frame on 8-10 shooting, carving up a defense that had no answer for him.
His boldest bucket came with 2:11 left in the first quarter. Brunson brought the ball up, pulled up for his third three of the period over the 6-foot-11 Noa Essengue, and forced Tiago Splitter into a timeout with the Bulls trailing 32-14. Chicago managed only 21 points in the quarter on 8-25 shooting.
That meant Brunson outscored the entire Bulls offense by himself in the first quarter.
It was a star taking over, plain and simple. It also exposed a familiar problem for Chicago: there isn’t a true on-ball stopper to throw at a guard like that.
OG Anunoby joined the party too, bullying his way to the line and going 11-12 there over the first two quarters. New York’s early pressure created space everywhere else, and the Knicks cashed in from deep as well, hitting 10-20 from three in the first half with five different players connecting from long range.
Chicago’s shooting never came close to matching it. The Bulls opened 5-26 from the field and at one point missed 20 straight threes before two-way guard Jaylin Sellers finally ended the drought. The fact that Sellers was the one to break the streak said plenty about how far the night had already gone off the rails.
The second half didn’t change much. Chicago added only 16 more field goals and never reached 30 points in either of the final two quarters. The Bulls finished at 38.5 percent from the floor with 10 made threes, spending most of the night trying to solve a set Knicks defense and rarely getting the chance to run.
New York, meanwhile, shot 50.7 percent overall and cruised behind a 30-37 night at the free throw line.
Splitter kept searching for something that would stick. He shuffled the rotation again, turning first to Zach Collins and Isaac Okoro off the bench in an effort to tighten things up. That eventually produced a new look with Collins and Okoro alongside Tre Jones, Norman Powell, and Josh Giddey, and later another unfamiliar group featuring Jones, Giddey, Powell, Noa Essengue, and Smith.
None of it changed the outcome. Chicago went 13 players deep in the first half alone, including giving Patrick Williams his first minutes of the season and getting two-way guard Jaylin Sellers on the floor.
The constant lineup changes raise a real question about how much mixing and matching helps. Splitter has been left with little choice while the Bulls keep digging themselves into huge holes, but the lack of consistency is obvious.
The pieces don’t look settled, and even the lead ball-handlers seem to be searching for the right fit. A tighter rotation might not fix everything, but it may be worth trying.
Caleb Wilson has been one of the few bright spots during these early blowouts, bringing energy and highlight plays that have at least made the losses easier to watch. This time, though, the frustration showed. He started 2-12 from the field, forced the action too often, and went 1-7 from three.
Splitter eventually pulled Wilson with 5:09 left in the third quarter, and he didn’t return. In earlier blowouts, Wilson had been sent back out late to finish the game. This time, Splitter left him on the bench, which looked like a message.
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