Dear New York Knicks,

Nobody likes your team. Your fake superstar has a game built on offensive fouls and pull-ups. You have Tyson Chandler, so you have one defender. Everybody else is an old man jacking 3s. You have one thing going for you: You are not the Indiana Pacers. So I’m pulling for you.

I should preface this open letter with the obvious fact that whoever wins your series, it won’t make a bit of difference to the Miami Heat. There is no team in the East who stands a chance against the Heat. Good luck with that.

The Indiana Pacers are a poor man’s (which is to say “Eastern Conference version” of the) Memphis Grizzlies. Roy Hibbert can’t

May 14, 2013; Indianapolis, IN, USA; New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony (7) warms up before the game against the Indiana Pacers in game four of the second round of the 2013 NBA Playoffs at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

hold Marc Gasol’s jock, but he’s a defensive presence. David West is a thug of a power forward who doesn’t block shots and likes his mid-range jumpers, just like Zach Randolph. Mike Conley and George Hill are underrated point guards who get the job done. Tony Allen is shooting 41% from the field and is still shooting better than Lance Stephenson. I love Paul George, so I won’t compare him to Curious George Tayshaun Prince.

We already have the Grizz slipping into the conference finals, mucking up offenses everywhere they go. Knicks, we need you to hit a few more of those threes and play just enough defense that Stephenson will be forced to shoot.

Should you fail, which any team built on volume three-point shooting is destined to in the Playoffs, an Indy-Miami Conference Finals will be an entertaining sweep, and maybe you’d be interested in a nice backup point guard from the Wolves. Like a Luke Ridnour? Or maybe a Jose Juan Barea? We’ll wait and talk to you Monday.

Is Nate Robinson’s performance as a diminutive, dynamic scoring inferno of a backup point guard driving up the stock of the Wolves own Jose Juan Barea?

Recent comments on the redundancy in the Wolves lineup by Flip Saunders could give one the inclination he hopes so. Luke Ridnour and Barea certainly fit that redundant description — as do Derrick Williams, Kevin Love and to a lesser extent, Dante Cunningham — but Ridnour and Barea’s redundancies are of position rather than role, as Luke facilitates with a steady hand while Barea is a destroyer of a team’s rhythm, be it his opponent’s or his own.

The point of that tortured explanation is simply that Barea, Ridnour, Williams and Brandon Roy are currently on the books for 4.3, 4.6, 5 and 5.3 million next year. With Roy’s contract being a potentially valuable and waivable team-option and Ridnour’s also set to expire after next season, there are movable parts with value that could add up to a nicely paid, and hopefully skilled, shooting guard.

Barea’s change-of-pace role may be benefitting from a higher profile thanks to Robinson, but his contract also runs two more years at over $9 million. That, folks, is a Kahn-tract.

Nate Robinson was spitting blood in the first half, then delivered the deepest cuts of the night in the final moments. And the Chicago Bulls reminded the Miami Heat that no one in the NBA plays them any tougher.

Robinson scored 27 points, Jimmy Butler added 21 points and a career-high-tying 14 rebounds, and the Bulls beat Miami 93-86 on Monday night in Game 1 of the teams’ Eastern Conference semifinal series. The team that snapped Miami’s 27-game winning streak in the regular season — the second-longest in NBA history — found a way to topple the champs again, this time ending a run of 12 straight Heat victories overall.

“I’ve played on some tough teams,” Robinson said. “But this one, there’s something a little different, something special about this group.”

“There’s no excuses,” said Spoelstra, whose team had not played in more than a week. “We’re not making any excuses for time off or anything else.”

If anyone could have made excuses, it was Robinson. He needed 10 stitches, five in his lip and five more inside his mouth, to close a nasty cut that came when he dove for a loose ball with James and struck his head on the court late in the first half.

And then not only did he play the whole second half, he scored 24 points in those 24 minutes, including the last seven points that finished the job for Chicago.