Friday evening, the New York Knicks absolutely shellacked the hapless Bulls out at Madison Square Garden by a final score of 136-96.
Less than 72 hours later, Chicago announced that they had officially dismissed two of their top executives, Arturas Karnisovas (Executive Vice President -- Basketball Operations) and Marc Eversley (General Manager), from their duties with the organization.
Though the Bulls have endured several years of sub-.500 play with the aforementioned duo in tow, and played a game against the Phoenix Suns just this past Sunday night, it seems rather apparent that their drubbing at the hands of the Knicks served as the final nail in their painfully mediocre coffin.
The fact of the matter is, this particular matchup out in the Big Apple marked the last time the Karnisovas and Eversley-assembled roster rolled out their preffered core of Josh Giddey, Isaac Okoro, Matas Buzelis, and Tre Jones prior to their ouster.
The quartet finished with a collective 37 points and a minus-103 plus-minus on the night, while being blown out by a Knicks team that had lost three of their previous four games coming in by a whopping 40.
Simply put, while the writing had been on the wall for a while that serious front office changes were coming, New York besting them in such a lopsided fashion may have expedited the process.
Knicks are title contenders if they can stay locked in
Though this commanding win may have come against the lottery-bound Bulls, in many ways, it served as a prime example of just how lethal the Knicks can be when they're completely locked in and firing on all cylinders.
On the night, New York saw themselves splashing home on north of 50.0 percent of their attempts from the floor and witnessed four different players drop 12 or more points.
What's most impressive of all is the fact that they managed to do so without All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns in the fold.
At 50-28, the Knicks are currently on pace to clinch a top-three seed in the Eastern Conference standings for the third consecutive year, and, considering owner James Dolan's mandate, they expect to follow this up by earning their first NBA Finals berth since 1999.
Splashy trade-deadline acquisition Jose Alvarado is seemingly convinced that this current core is more than capable of accomplishing these lofty goals, saying during Monday's shootaround media session that "We can get to that level" needed to become a final two team in the association come year's end, though "We just got to stay consistent and confident in who we are."
Hopefully, the Knicks team that shows up come playoff time is the one they showed flashes of being during last week's outing against the Bulls.