Bulls hoping for good news on Noah
The Chicago Bulls are hoping to get good news Monday regarding the status of injured center Joakim Noah.
Noah suffered a left-shoulder sprain Dec. 21 against Brooklyn. The original timeline was two weeks off, then get checked out by doctors.
"He's doing very well. He'll get retested, re-evaluated on Monday and then we'll have a better idea on how long he'll be out," coach Fred Hoiberg said before Friday's game. "We're hoping he gets cleared right away. He hasn't had any contact since he injured the shoulder, but everything is progressing as we would like and as we would hope. So we'll see next week."
If all goes well, Noah will return to practice right away and it may be a matter of days before he's ready for game action.
"That's the hope. I don't know exactly how that will go," Hoiberg said. "He still has to be careful with the shoulder because it did pop out of joint. I guess reinjury is the biggest thing, but if the doctors are confident that everything is healed up well, then hopefully he'll be good to go."
Fisher stays silent:
New York Knicks coach Derek Fisher declined to comment Friday on a bizarre Instagram rant posted by Memphis forward Matt Barnes.
Barnes began his passage by calling 2015 the worst year of his life. Among other topics, Barnes wrote about the altercation he had with Fisher in October when Fisher visited the home of Barnes' ex-wife in California.
"Last but not least, being stuck in the "triangle offense" with my ex and snitch, I mean former teammate and friend who went behind my back, messed with my ex, got caught, got dealt with for being a snake, then ran and told the police and NBA," Barnes' Instagram message read. "Instead of taking that (butt) whoopin like a man and kept it moving. Where they do that at? I guess cause I didn't snitch, I get a two-game suspension by the league. They call that life."
It was not immediately clear if Barnes had any comment on whether he knows the definition of the word "ex."
League second-guesses call:
The NBA officiating report from Wednesday's Bulls-Pacers ruled that Jimmy Butler should have been called for a foul on the final play of the game when he broke up a long alley-oop inbound pass intended for Paul George.
Butler scored the game-winning basket with 1.2 seconds left in overtime by tapping in a lob pass from Pau Gasol, while George played tight defense.
The league also issued a flop warning to Toronto guard Kyle Lowry, who faked a run-in with Bobby Portis' elbow Monday, while drawing a foul call from game officials.
Knicks rookie follows Gasol:
Growing up in Latvia, Knicks rookie Kristaps Porzingis was a fan of Bulls center Pau Gasol.
"Especially when I was 9, 10 (and) he was on the Lakers," Porzingis said, according to The New York Daily News. "That was my team, Kobe (Bryant) and Pau. I was a big fan. I love to see how intelligent he is on the floor. His basketball IQ is one of the highest there is. He knows the game so well, and those are the things I learn from him how well he reads the game."
Gasol did not play when the Bulls faced the Knicks in New York on Dec. 19, so Friday's game at the United Center was the first meeting of the two players.