Knicks beat Bulls again for sixth straight victory

CHICAGO — It was a bit of déjà vu for the Knicks as they entered the United Center on Friday. The same handshakes and hugs from old friends awaiting Tom Thibodeau, Derrick Rose and Rick and Jalen Brunson, along with Rose holding court again to recount his days starring in this city and probably too many Chicago steakhouses to safely measure cholesterol for all involved.

And it was, most important for the Knicks, the same result — another win. The Knicks completed a two-game, three-day stay in Chicago with a convincing 114-91 win over the Bulls, running their winning streak to six games.

The Knicks (16-13) won in every aspect of this game, led by 27 points from RJ Barrett, 22 from Quentin Grimes and Jalen Brunson and 19 from Julius Randle. In the first half, Brunson and Grimes scored 15 points each and shot a combined 9-for-11 from three-point range.

The Knicks  held the Bulls to 59 points after the first quarter.

“I thought our defense, even though they shot a high percentage, I thought we had great activity,’’ Thibodeau said. “We caused turnovers and it got us into the open floor. Easy buckets. We got to the line 30 times and I also thought we created good rhythm to shoot threes so we shot a good percentage from three. But I loved our overall activity. We’ve got to continue to do that.’’

The only mystery by the end was if the fans who stuck around would get their way and see Rose make his first appearance since Dec. 3 after sitting out five straight games. Thibodeau, refusing to play the Grinch in the Christmas season, gave in to the chants of the crowd and inserted Rose with 3:31 left and the margin 29 points. He hit a three-pointer on his first shot and the crowd was as loud as it had been all night.

Was Rose surprised at the reaction? “Yeah. Always, always,’’ he said. “Like, you never know how important — the way that we played back then, how it affects the people.’’

Said Thibodeau, “It was great. Happy for him. I know what he means to this city, to the fans, to the Bulls. And I know how he feels about the Bulls and the city, so it was really nice to see for him.’’

The Knicks were back for their second straight game in Chicago, an odd but smart quirk in the NBA schedule-making as the league tries to cut down on travel. This is the only time the Knicks will play consecutive games in the same city against the same team, echoing a playoff-type situation in the dog days of the NBA season.

After earning a 128-120 overtime win over the Bulls on Wednesday, the Knicks had plenty of time to see their game plan in action, what was executed well and what needed work.

But what Thibodeau indicated before the game — and his team took to heart — was that there would be no surprises or strategic shifts. Instead, to win a second straight game here, it would be the team that played with more intensity. Almost from the opening tip, that was the Knicks.

Midway through the third quarter, Mitchell Robinson ripped down an offensive rebound and emphatically dunked it. Bulls center Nikola Vucevic just turned away and put his palms up as if to indicate, what can you do? By that point the Knicks had piled up 13 offensive rebounds and the Bulls astoundingly had none. By the end, the Knicks’ edge was 15-2.

“You have to understand how you get to that point,” Thibodeau said. “The important thing is you don’t skip over anything. It has to be day after day after day of doing the right things. That’s how you develop confidence and a belief in what you’re doing.

“It’s also how you get better at doing something. So to not shortcut that, not feel too good about, OK, we won the last game. That has nothing to do with this game. Be ready for this game. So you have to start all over in preparing yourself to play. Developing that mindset is huge. When you have the right type of guys that are real competitive and tough-minded, that’s how they approach it.”

A common Thibodeau message is that you either win or learn, and that losses carry value as long as you learn from them. But Brunson put a twist on that after Wednesday’s victory.

“We’ve got to keep piecing wins together,” he said. “We can learn from wins as well. Try to keep building and got to keep learning. They’re going to come out ready to play on Friday. We’ve got to be ready for that.”

Thibodeau echoed that notion of learning from wins, too.

“And that’s the challenge because you’re fighting human nature,” he said. “In every game, there’s things you do well, things that you don’t do as well as you would like, and if you have one, it’s to make sure that same approach in terms of making your corrections to get better. And so I think the attitude and approach is critical.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.