Joakim Noah was in the spotlight Thursday night at the United Center in Chicago during the game between the Bulls and New York. Retired since last March, the French pivot was treated to a special evening on the sidelines of the clash between the two franchises where he spent almost all of his career. And it was his ex-teammates Taj Gibson and Derrick Rose, under the leadership of his ex-coach Tom Thibodeau, who left with the victory for New York (104-103).
Facing the previously undefeated Bulls, the Knicks took control of the game in the first quarter, led by Kemba Walker (21 points) and RJ Barrett (20). Clumsy, Chicago let the New Yorkers slip away until they found themselves trailing by 13 points, two minutes from the buzzer (104-91).
The moment chosen by the Bulls to ignite the United Center with an improbable comeback. A streak of 12 consecutive points ended on an award-winning shot from Nikola Vucevic and a dunk from Zach LaVine to close the gap to one point. Chicago even had a match point in stride but DeMar DeRozan (largely) missed the target on his signature shot at half distance.
Evan Fournier’s Knicks (10 points) join the Bulls at the top of the Eastern Conference with four wins in five games, like Charlotte and Washington.
Memphis wins Golden State
Bis repeated for the Grizzlies. As in June during the play-in, Memphis won at the Chase Center, on the floor of Golden State after an extension (104-101). Faced with Stephen Curry and his teammates, still undefeated, the Tennessee players found themselves trailing by 19 points at the start of the match (20-39, 13th).
But the Grizzlies tightened their defense and made the Warriors pay for their 22 ball losses. And as Curry (36 points) went mute, Ja Morant woke up. The young point guard from Memphis scored 18 of his 30 points in the third quarter to pick up.
Then, in overtime, Morant closed the scoring with a lay-up (104-101) while his teammates muzzled Curry to prevent him from firing any shots. Golden State is no longer undefeated and cedes the lead in the Western Conference to Utah.