CHICAGO — In the blink of an eye, the Bulls blew the game wide open. What was a zip-zip affair at tipoff quickly became a 12-point first-quarter deficit ballooning to an insurmountable 20-point hole for a desperate Knicks team kicking off a four-game road trip on Friday. These Knicks have proven anything but desperate with five games remaining on the schedule until it’s win-or-go-home time in the playoffs. Provided they make it to the playoffs outright — the Knicks still aren’t out of the woods when it comes to the Play-In Tournament. Friday’s loss marked the fourth in New York’s last five games. The losses have had a common thread: poor starts to the first quarter. What happened in front of a sellout United Center crowd also occurred in recent games against the Sacramento Kings, Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs. How can they turn it around? How can they buck this recent trend to salvage what’s left of the momentum placing them within two games of the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed? The Knicks are just as close to the Bucks (47-30) as they are to the seventh-seeded Heat (43-34). All-Star guard Jalen Brunso n offered two words of advice for his team after a disappointing loss to a Bulls team on the schedule two more times before the season ends, including the season finale at Madison Square Garden. “Wake up,” he said emphatically at his locker. Over the last five games, the Knicks are the second-worst first-quarter scoring team in all of
basketball. They are getting outscored by an average of 36.3 points per 100 opening-period possessions. Only the
Utah Jazz and Brooklyn Nets have had worse starts to games over their last five games — but the Nets have won three of their last five, while the Knicks are searching for ways out of their slump. In those last five games, the Knicks: What’s been the common theme in the Knicks’ slow starts? “Good question. We’ve gotta play tougher, play from a lead,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said after Friday’s loss. “We expend a lot of energy digging out of a hole. We were fortunate at home in the Sacramento game to recover and win, and tonight we fell short.” Yet a commonality in the Knicks’ success this season is the exact opposite: Strong starts leading to strong finishes. The Knicks are 31-6 this season in games they win the first quarter, which makes them 14-26 in games they do not. Now is not the time to reverse a bullish trend. “They played with more energy, more pace than we did,” Brunson said after the loss to the Bulls. “I can’t remember if Miami was like that, but it’s basically two games in a row that we were down big early. So we just came out [flat].” “I don’t know. I guess [we have to come out with more] energy,” starting center Isaiah Hartenstein told the Daily News after the game. “At this point, we just have to do better.” Everyone is looking at the standings. How could they not? The East is one big cluster-you-know-what under the league-best Celtics. Even the No. 2-seeded Bucks, who lost to the lottery-bound Raptors on Friday, are in danger of falling into the Play-In Tournament if they were to lose their final five games of the season. The Knicks are at the center, both literally and figuratively: They are the fifth of 10 Eastern Conference seeds fighting for playoff positioning. A winning streak could vault them as high as second, while enough losses could send
New York to the Play-In. The Knicks are one game behind the third-seeded Cavaliers and only a game-and-a-half ahead of the Pacers, who own the sixth and final guaranteed East playoff spot — but sit just half-game in front of the No. 7 Heat. Even the No. 8 76ers are expected to make a run at No. 6 with Joel Embiid returning to the rotation after a mid-season meniscus injury. And the Bulls are sitting ninth — but No. 9 just beat No. 5 on Friday. “The East is tough,” Brunson said. “Three through seven, whatever it is — Boston and Milwaukee, I don’t know what happened with them tonight. Maybe two through seven, but it’s close. It’s close. So there’s no exhaling right now.” To make matters worse for the Knicks, their last five games include two road matchups against No. 1 and 2 in Boston and Milwaukee. The Boston game is the first leg of a back-to-back, with the second coming against a Nets team solely motivated to secure a victory over their cross-bridge rivals. Their remaining two games are against the same Bulls team they lost to on Friday. If the Knicks, who have lost four of their last five, lose three more games, the seventh seed is on the table. “Our margin of error is very tight right now,” said Thibodeau.