Knicks, with Porzingis sidelined, beat Bulls
NEW YORK - Right now, the Knicks will take a win - any kind of win. And they got one Thursday with a 104-89 win over the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden.
But even in victory the Knicks may have suffered a more pressing loss as Kristaps Porzingis was sidelined with the same sore left achilles that put him out of action for three games recently. Porzingis returned for four games, but gave in and sat out this game.
Without Porzingis the Knicks relied on the scoring of Carmelo Anthony, who had a game-high 23 points, and Derrick Rose, who added 17 points against his former team. Joakim Noah, who has struggled through much of the season but had 16 points and 9 rebounds in the first meeting with his former team, added 12 points and 15 rebounds this time. Mindaugas Kuzminskas came off the bench to contribute 19 points.
All things Knicks: Latest New York Knicks news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.
“People can spin however they want it,” Noah said. “When you leave this locker room room it always feels good after a W. Losing sucks. We look back at some of those losses we took, they were really a heartbreak overall. Two buzzer beaters in a 10-day span. Overall I’m just happy we bounced back like that, we showed some resiliency and we just got to keep going, keep getting better.”
Popper: Even with a win Knicks' lows are latest in long line of failure
Knicks notebook: Porzingis sidelined again
The win gave the Knicks their first victory on the back end of a set of back-to-back games after failing in the first seven tries. With or without Porzingis, the last-second loss Wednesday, the distractions of Rose’s AWOL Monday, made a win feel like more than just one game in the standings.
“It’s huge,” Rose said. “You never know where this can take us. I think everybody is really happy that we got the monkey off our back but we got to continue to play hard and give the effort like we want to win.”
“There was no mention of, ‘Hey, past games we let it slip away,’” Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said. “You’re trying to move forward, not bring up those bad memories. It was good for them to get a win.”
Porzingis tried to downplay the soreness in his left achilles Wednesday after air-balling his final shot and sending the Knicks to defeat. But when he woke up Thursday he felt the pain and texted Jeff Hornacek to tell the coach there was a problem.
Porzingis was held out with the same injury that recently cost him three games. This time, the Knicks are uncertain just how long it could sideline the 7-foot-3 second-year star.
“We thought he missed five days or what, two, three games,” Hornacek said. “So that was a pretty good little break and he was able to come back. Now it flared up again. So the trainers will continue to look at it.
“Somehow if it ends up being off and on, that’s not great for us. If he comes out there and says I can play tonight, we’re not going to say no necessarily. We got to trust the players because we can’t really have that feeling of what it’s like in his Achilles. So he’s got to be honest with his assessment if he can play or not. We’ll kind of work with the trainers and look at it that way and make decisions.”
Hornacek pointed to the achilles as a possibility Wednesday after Porzingis shot 1-for-6 from beyond the arc, following up an 0-for-4 performance Monday. With the Knicks having lost nine of 10 games entering Thursday’s game, Hornacek said that the timing to lose Porzingis was not ideal.
“It’s not great. Not great,” he said. “But what can you do? This is the NBA. Your games come at you fast. If you’re winning it’s great, you just show up and play a game the next day. When you’re losing there’s no time to try to fix things.”
Email: popper@northjersey.com