3 Most Eye-Catching Box Score Numbers from the Knicks' 135-105 Win over the Bulls

The New York Knicks defeated the Chicago Bulls 135-105 Wednesday, their second win over the Bulls in a week. A dozen Knicks notched their names on the scoresheet. Lotta numbers in this one. Here are three that stood out.

With Josh Hart out due to ankle soreness, for the first time this season the Knicks were without one of their vaunted starting five. The simplest solution would be to elevate one of the reserves to Hart’s spot and let the usual bench mob accumulate its usual minutes. Mike Brown being a bit of a mad scientist, the regular season is for him a laboratory. In his latest experiment, he didn’t raise the dosage on any one reserve. He upticked all of them.

14 Knicks played, everybody but Hart: every starter, sub and two-way contract. 12 played at least 10 minutes. Jalen Brunson had 33 points in a team-high 28 minutes, outscoring Chicago by himself in the first quarter. Landry Shamet played 25 minutes, starting in Hart's place. Mohamed Diawara and James Wiseman both had season-highs in minutes. Dalton Knecht made his Knick debut and did some of everything in 16 highlight-saturated minutes.

Hart is a one-of-a-kind player, impossible to replicate. Brown could have gone the Thibodeau route and played Shamet 35 minutes while adding a bit to the Jordan Clarkson/Jose Alvarado/Tyler Kolek workload. Instead, he threw everything and the kitchen sink at the Bulls, and it all worked. A good night for the Knick depth and the Knick coach.

Wiseman blocked three shots in 10 minutes. Coming into this game, no Knick had more than four all season. Diawara got his first real playing time of the year and blocked a few. Even Knecht got in on the rejection train. That's six blocks from three players who literally and figuratively never play for the Knicks.

New York came in ranked 24th in the league in blocks, but aided by their infusion of youth – and the ineptitude of the opponent – their defense was suffocating, deflecting, rejecting and turning the Bulls over over and over again, sparking a 19-6 edge in fastbreak points. As the Knicks built a lead that ballooned to as many as 44 points, Anunoby was blitzing the Bulls one possession after another. He may as well have been 1986 Lawrence Taylor. Chicago could not stop him.

When the Knicks are causing chaos and getting out into transition and secondary transition, they get easy buckets and better 3-point looks. Everybody gets flowing. Diawara and Wiseman weren’t the first- or second-most impactful Knicks in this game, but while they may not have caused most of the good happening around them, it's likely there’s some correlation between the Knicks playing their longest, springiest defenders, then going out and blocking more shots while enjoying the edge in transition.

In Anunoby’s first two full years with the Knicks, he averaged more than three free-throw attempts a game, something he’d never done in Toronto. After his star turn in the championship run, Anunoby talked about looking to get to the line more. OG doesn’t waste words, but even so, him nearly doubling his attempts per game has been one of the more pleasant surprises of the young season.

Wednesday against the Bulls he took it to another level. Anunoby went to the line 12 times in the first half -- one fewer than his Knick career-high for an entire game. Twice as many as the entire Bulls team had taken by intermission. OG took his foot off the gas in seven third-quarter minutes, before sitting for good with the Knicks up 40, or else the numbers would have ended up even more impressive.

Brunson has been slowly cranking back up to what he usually looks like. Towns just put up his eighth double-double in eight games. Anunoby is the most variable of New York’s constellation of stars. Getting to the line consistently is one way of making his presence known. The more he does that, the more OG’s shine can't be missed -- by the fans, the opponent or the All-Star voters.

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