Bulls 81, Knicks 88

"It is good for us to be able to finish games and we also have to develop a killer instinct where we have leads like that and put teams away so we don't have to go through the heartache," -- Chris Duhon.

"There are some thinks we have to learn, but that is good. The things we need to learn, we can do it, just a little more energy on offense, get back on defense." -- Mike D'Antoni

Bobcats 94, Knicks 98

This in from SI.com about your boy Brandon Jennings:

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings was fined $7,500 by the NBA on Friday for posting a message on his Twitter account after Milwaukee's 108-101 double-overtime win over Portland last weekend.

Jennings was fined for the timing of his post, not the content, when he tweeted: "Back to 500. Yess!!! "500" means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys."

The fine was announced several hours before the Bucks played at Cleveland, and Jennings reacted on his Twitter account.

"I understand I got fined, but 7500?" Jennings tweeted after learning of the decision. "For being happy over a win, you would of thought I said something bad. I mean it was a big win for us."

Asked about the fine before Friday's game, Jennings admitted he made a rookie mistake.

"It was a lessson learned and I'll move on from it," he said. "Don't Tweet when you're in the arena. I won't do that anymore. That's a lot of money, especially around Christmas time. You do a lot of shopping for the family. It doesn't look like I'll be able to do that this year. I may just have to give out a bunch of Under Armour gear."

According to the NBA's social media policy, players cannot tweet during game time, defined as beginning 45 minutes before the game starts and ending after players have finished talking to the media following the game. His post came at 10:39 p.m. on Saturday, about 15 minutes after the game ended.

Jennings, a prep star who played professionally in Europe for a year before being picked 10th in the draft, has already had a run-in with social media.

He apologized shortly after being drafted by the Bucks for drawing unwanted attention when a profanity-laced and provocative telephone conversation he had was videotaped and posted on YouTube.

Jennings, averaging 20.7 points and 6.0 assists in 23 games, said he'd learned from the incident and he shut down his original Twitter account to focus only on the season.

He couldn't help himself, though, and revealed on his Facebook site on Nov. 9 that he'd established a new Twitter account.

He told The Associated Press at the time he wanted to stay connected to his fans and didn't think it would be a distraction again. Five days later, he became the youngest player in NBA history to score at least 50 points with 55 against Golden State.

But he may be rethinking his plans after losing a chunk of his rookie salary, or at least scaling back his holiday plans.

"I'm bout to delete my twitter," Jennings tweeted Friday. "Cost me 7500. Looks like no Gucci and Louie for Xmas."

I just saw this pretty funny fake promotional video featuring Danilo Gallinari, as interpreted by comedian Joe Praino, on YouTube. If this snow storm has you shut in watch this and laugh a little. It's not too bad here in New Jersey yet, but I decided to spend most of my day laughing anyway. The second video is Danilo Gallinari as he looked during a pre-season practice. The comparison -- the difference between then and now -- is amazing. Gallinari has come a long way, but he has a long way to go. His defense was pretty decent at key times last night. . . but his defense was one of the several reasons we were down by 20 in the first half against the Clippers.

Clippers 91, Knicks 95

"I was very unhappy with the way I played in the first half. I just tried to come out and turn up my intensity and try to lead the team in the second half, and I thought our team played a lot better defense in the second half overall." -- David Lee

"I thought our effort in the second half was unbelievable. David Lee, I thought his second half was incredible. He really had a super, super second half for sure." -- Mike D'Antoni

"It felt good. I was real excited. Had a lot of adrenaline going out, just wanted to get out there and do good, definitely make my first shot. And after I got that off my back, I felt pretty good from there." -- Jonathan Bender

In the beginning of last night's thrilling victory against the Clippers, when the first quarter ended with the Knicks down 31-16 after a 16-0 run by LA, it seemed that D'Antoni's decision to play his five starters over 36 minutes each the previous evening would come back to haunt him. D'Antoni's Knicks were slow and lethargic as the Clippers took advantage of their own length with Kaman and Camby in the post. The Knicks seemed over-matched as the Clippers kept them  on their heels with an added succession of fast breaks often led by Eric Gordon.

Knicks 89, Bulls 98

"We were hitting so many (threes) at first I think they got a little happy and then we got out of rhythm toward the end of the first quarter and never got back into it. And you have to give them (the Bulls) credit too. They picked up their defense and have some nice athletes on the floor." -- Mike D'Antoni

"Larry is a guy who can spell me from the point guard and he brings different things defensively and offensively. But right now it gives other guys a chance to go up. This is a great opportunity for Toney, who has been playing well. He has the opportunity to get some quality minutes now and be able to help us in this rotation." -- Chris Duhon

Wow. The time for end-of-year top 10 lists and New Year's resolutions has snuck up on us again as another year ends.

For many of us this is a time of reflection about the year that has passed and preparation for the year(s) ahead.  Usually, when we look back at ourselves plowing through the last 350 plus days, we see room for improvement in how we treat others, ourselves and the world we live in.  However, some of us look in the mirror and ignore our own faults, while giddily focusing on those of our friends and relatives  We accept our faults as a quirky part of our uniqueness, rightly imposable upon others. Or we ignore those defects simply because we don't want to face the possibility of failing if we try to change.

Others of us want to improve, so we make resolutions as promises of transformation for the better during the next year.  Admittedly, most of our plans lack foundations for success because the timetable, support system, accountability and commitment are omni-absent.   But, we must start somewhere and recognizing issues and distilling them into New Year's resolutions can be considered the beginning of recovery, even if we start from the same point every year for the rest of our lives.

This is where Knicks Fanatics comes in at the end of your 2009.  Our goal is always to serve and as a gift to our readers we are going to help you get your resolutions together. We have identified the top 10 resolutions of common people and since there is nothing common about you, we have modified, reshaped and recast them for you, the thinking sports fan. With help from the great NBA writers in the Bloguin network, we could not think of a better vehicle than our second NBA-A-Thon, a carnival of some of the best work in the blogosphere. With a nod to Don at With Malice, who started us off with  NBA-A-Thon #1, we present NBA-A-THON #2 and hope that all your wishes and resolutions come true in 2010, except those that have LeBron James punking the New York Knicks.

HELP Others YOUR GENERAL MANAGER,

by convincing him (no hers?) that a stud's off-court issues should not outweigh on-court production unless your team earns a nickname like the Jail-blazers or Toronto Crappers (note: Starbury, formerly of the team maligned as the Knickerslackers, stopped being a stud a millennium ago). Is there any better example of how this resolution can work beneficially than the Lakers' relationship with Ron Artest? According to Don of With Malice, the Artest Experiment? is a success since LA is the perfect forum outside the Forum for Ron Ron's bizarre play-dates with the media.

SPEND MORE TIME with family and friends COLLABORATING AND SCREWING AROUND WITH YOUR BLOG BUDS

Mookie, who is always ahead of the curve, at A Stern Warning joins with basketball writer Daniel Eade to drop some joint knowledge and insight on readers about the first quarter's award frontrunners in  NBA Awards, 20 Games In. Blogiun's Hoops Head North crew takes collaboration to a new level in the 4th edition of their hilariously informative video blog -- Video Blog 4: HoopHeadsNorth.com & HipHoopJunkies.com (December 10, 2009). This is a great example of how teamwork can make a boring team look interesting.