New York Knicks at Chicago Bulls: Five Big Takeaways from Bulls Loss

Kristaps Porzingis

The second-year phenom for the Knicks wasn’t about to let Rose and Noah have all the attention, even if the Bulls might have felt that way. Chicago might have missed the scouting report on Porzingis, or they might have bought their own hype about their defense and felt like going under on every screen that Young Staps set for Rose or any other ballhandler.

Porzingis finished the game with a team-high 27 points in 32 minutes. He shot the lights out, going 10-for-15 from the field, 4-for-7 from 3-point range and 3-for-5 from the free throw line. There was only one player who had a more impressive shot chart on the evening, and that was a certain Bull that we will get to in just a little bit.

The only drawback for Kristaps was a problem that the rest of his team, and basically every team to play Chicago this season, had – grabbing rebounds. He only had one assist, five rebounds and picked up five fouls with no blocks or steals in this game.

He might be the future of New York basketball, but the young big is so good that on some nights, he’s also the present. Tonight, he did enough to carry the team’s scoring when they needed it.

Porzingis and the rest of the Knicks starting five carried their team to victory, scoring 100 of the team’s 117 points on the night. Without the clutch shot-making and quality minutes of Young Staps, the Knicks would have been forced to lean more heavily on a nearly non-existent bench.