Bulls fade at finish, lose to lowly Knicks
The 2 overtime losses last week stung a little. But the Bulls' defeat Tuesday night had to feel more like sawing off one's own hoof.
The Bulls squandered a 12-point, fourth-quarter lead against one of the NBA's worst teams. Going scoreless over the last 4:17, they suffered an embarrassing 105-100 loss to the New York Knicks.
New York (9-24) started the night on a seven-game losing streak and also had dropped seven in a row at the United Center.
"It's just disappointing," coach Jim Boylan said. "We had the game in hand and let it get way. There's no way we can make up ground or be thinking about getting into the playoffs if we are going to continue to play like that at the end of the game."
The Bulls scored their last basket on a jumper by Ben Gordon (21 points) that gave the home team a 100-95 lead at the 4:17 mark.
The next six Bulls possessions resulted in a blocked shot, 2 turnovers and 3 misses by Gordon. The Knicks tied the score on Jamal Crawford's jumper, then took the lead with 1:59 left when David Lee finished a dunk off a pass from Stephon Marbury.
With the Bulls trailing 102-100, Tyrus Thomas was called for an offensive foul with 1:15 left. Then the Knicks missed a pair of shots but secured the offensive rebound both times.
The Bulls had one more chance to get a defensive stop. Curry lost control of the ball in the post but managed to bat it out to Marbury at the top of the key. He buried an open 3-pointer with 11.4 seconds on the clock to seal the outcome.
The Bulls (13-20) let double-digit leads get away in both halves, while their largest advantage was 90-78 after Aaron Gray opened the fourth quarter with a jumper. Curry scored 29 points to lead New York, while Jamal Crawford added 24.
"I'm disappointed with our play in the fourth quarter," Boylan said. "We just started holding the ball, had no movement and became very stagnant. We couldn't make shots; the shot selection was poor.
"I don't think I did a very good job of managing our team and so we'll have to watch the tape and see what corrections we can make. If we want to be a team that makes it to the playoffs, we certainly all have to step up."
Joe Smith led the Bulls with 22 points. Luol Deng (left Achilles' tendinitis) did not play, while Andres Nocioni (3 of 12 for 7 points) was limited to 16 points because of an illness.
There were a few strange occurrences in this game. During a timeout with six minutes remaining, the referees held up the game for several minutes and took a point away from the Knicks.
Late in the third quarter, Curry rattled home a free throw, but the scorer's table gave New York 2 points because it appeared that Joakim Noah may have inadvertently tipped it in.
The Knicks also made a mistake on the active roster sheet that each team must turn in before every game. The Knicks had Renaldo Balkman's name listed twice and left off Quentin Richardson, who ended up starting and scoring 5 points.