NEW YORK – You can’t blame fans of the Chicago or New York City NBA franchises for feeling a little nostalgic as they watched their teams play at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.
Both the Bulls and the Knicks have returned to relevancy together for the first time in a decade and many have even thought of their memorable 1990s rivalry. The reloaded teams under Billy Donovan and Tom Thibodeau produced two action-filled games at the United Center in the first month of the season, and the first trip to Manhattan was on Tuesday night.
Naturally, the third chapter of this renewed rivalry didn’t disappoint, either, especially if you are a Bulls fan.
A tight contest between the teams came down the final minutes when veteran DeMar DeRozan once again showed his ability to finish games at his best.
The forward scored 18 of his game-high 34 points in the fourth quarter, hitting 6-of-7 from the field along with 6-of-7 from the free throw line to fend off a late Knicks rally. In fact, DeRozan scored the final six points of the game for the Bulls to close out New York as his team improved to 15-8 on the season.
Initially, it was Nikola Vucevic and Zach LaVine that got the Bulls off to the fast start at Madison Square Garden, with the guard scoring 13 and the center 11 as the visitors led 37-19 after one quarter. The Bulls still led by 18 at the half but the Knicks closed the gap six by the end of the third and were going back-and-forth in the fourth quarter.
Julius Randle (30 points) gave the Knicks the lead by a point with 3:08 to go before DeRozan and LaVine shut the door. The guard (27 points) would score six-straight for the Bulls to get the lead to 113-111 before the forward had his six-point run to close out a second win over the Knicks in three games.
The final regular season chapter of this renewed rivalry won’t commence until March 28th at Madison Square Garden, and that match-up will have a lot to live up two after the first three contests of 2021-2022.