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Julius Randle and Zach LaVine face off during a game between the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks in February.
Two famous franchises, the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks, emerge this season as success stories and at the same time as playoff threats for 2022.
Chicago and New York are a combined 7-1 that Thursday goes into the game at the United Center and rides the game of their all-stars Julius Randle and Zach LaVine.
Both teams were among the most talked about this off-season, with the Bulls adding DeMar DeRozan and Lonzo ball and the Knicks adding a new backcourt Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier introduced.
It will be a clash of the prematurely anointed Titans, for the first of four times for the 2021-2022 season.
Recent history favors the New York Knicks and the former Chicago Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau, who will also bring United Center long-time favorites Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson to Windy City.
New York Knicks point guard Derrick Rose auditioned with the media be his final homecoming in Windy City honoring his former teammate Joakim Noah.
As a former league MVP for the Chicago Bulls, it’s all love (via the New York Post) between the guard and the team who own him designed:
It’s a great man to come back. The relationship between me and Joakim has always been pretty close, pretty close. To see how it is celebrated [Thursday] is huge. Lots of my friends when I wasn’t their favorite player when we played. It was Joakim. To him everything he gave this franchise, the way he gave it everything for the game means a lot.
Noah and Rose were also teammates at the Knicks for that infamous 2016-2017 season, in who he regrettably called New York « a great team » before they finished 31-51.
It’s just one of many connections between these two clubs, two of the most famous in the entire NBA.
Head coach Tom Thibodeau will go into this match hoping to improve his previous record against the team that gave him his first head coach position a few years ago.
Per Elias Bureau, he has won 7-2 against the Bulls since the two of them separated Teams split up in 2015 as head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves and now the New York Knicks.
He was spotted with a number of former Chicago players the night before the game, including the honorable Noah celebrating the big guy :
But as much emotion as will be flying around the United Center Thursday night will be forgotten by Tom Thibodeau and that New York Knicks team for a moment while they’re there.
This duel between the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks won’t crown the 2022 Eastern Conference champions, but whoever wins this game is sure to make a name for themselves among the teams to beat.
Kemba Walker spoke about the upcoming matchup (via New York Daily News) after training earlier this week:
It’s amazing. These guys play very, very well. It’s going to be a dogfight for sure.
Chicago and New York obviously share an eventful past from the days of Michael Jordan ‘s teams in the 1990s.
But this is a different era, like Bondy in the above play notes that the Bulls and Knicks are far from being successful franchises:
Together, the Knicks and Bulls have made more losses than any other NBA franchise in the past five seasons. They’ve shared an appearance in the conference finals since the 1990s and only one win in the playoff series since 2015.
Perhaps this October 28th match will signal the revival of two franchises that, if they are at the top of the rest of the league Stand, represent the history of the NBA.
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