Despite a furious rally from the Knicks reserves, the hole dug by the listless starters and the barrage of threes from the world champions proved too much to overcome.

Losses like this are so layered that they don’t lend themselves to easy analysis. There are lots of things to pick out, to nitpick, and sorting out blame is a tricky endeavor, even with the uninspiring play of the starters being the clear root cause. I’ve sprinkled my notes and reflections into a quarter-by-quarter retelling, so let us get to it… but first, a palate cleanser:

First quarter

The first half of the first quarter felt like both teams testing each other out. It was an even affair for about six minutes. The offense wasn’t quite yet stagnant, but it was most certainly kept afloat by Julius Randle, who — notably — showed a willingness to take catch-and-shoot threes. It is notable because we have recently been treated to him pump faking away wide open shots in favor of pounding the rock or feeling out and probing defenses. 

The Knicks re-initiated their game plan from their prior matchup vs. Giannis, doubling hard and daring the Bucks to beat them from three, which Jrue Holiday and others happily obliged. The quality of the Knicks’ rotations continued to remain shaky, and effort was equally inconsistent. 

The first two Bucks threes (shown below: a transition 28-footer by Grayson Allen, and a trailing three by Knick legend Bobby Portis) resulted from lack of both effort and communication. On the former, Kemba expected to defend George Hill, and when Grayson was the closer man and about to receive the ball, Kemba declined to bother him at all. On the Portis three, Portis was lagging up the court, so Mitch decided to help defend the Giannis/Jrue pick-and-roll and neglected to monitor Bobby, who strolled into a wide open catch-and-shoot three. Was it absentmindedness with good intention, or another case of Mitch’s brain still adjusting to a newer, stronger, slower body? Perhaps both.

On the third three, also by Allen, Giannis received the ball in the post vs. Julius. Mitch, who was chasing a cutting Portis, directed RJ Barrett toward Grayson both vocally and by pointing, and RJB dutifully took a step out toward Grayson... however, as Giannis turned away from the hoop, RJB inexplicably returned back to him to double, leaving Grayson wide open within Giannis’ direct line of sight. The two of them can make that connection in their sleep. 

If you want a visual on the Knicks’ game plan, this works (Connaughton missed, which is probably the only time you will read those two words together in this recap):

Still, there were signs of life. Kemba was dancing, but unable to get a shot to drop. Mitch had an excellent block, and was rewarded (which seems like a first) with an entry pass since he had a mismatch. He was fouled, but that assertiveness is something you love to see. Fournier had a steal and a transition dunk. Unfortunately, the home team ended the quarter on a sour note: Evan had two pretty bad turnovers within a minute, leading an incensed coach Thibs to pull him for Alec Burks, who was caught flat-footed on a Jordan Nwora jam. Sprinkled into these errors were Bucks O-boards, a Giannis pull-up three, and a Connaughton step-back three — well-defended by Derrick Rose, but it still went in.

Second quarter

A theme of this team: the second unit has more fun. And, more importantly, it is better, at least for now. The second unit was more capable of balancing giving the paint (and Giannis) extra attention without miscommunicating on rotations and double teams. On offense, the ball was pinging around. One possession that was fun involved Alec Burks throwing a 50-foot semi-transition entry pass to Obi, who ran the floor and sealed his man early. Obi was fouled, so Burks didn’t get an assist, but it is a great example of how early offense comes in many forms, not just fast breaks dunks and transition threes.

Another unfortunate theme also emerged: second-chance points. 

The Bucks ended the game with 20 second-chance points. New York currently sports a 72.5% DREB rate, which is good for 20th in the league. Last year, the Pistons sported a 72.5% DREB rate, good for 25th. The Knicks were 73.8%, good for 12th. Now, 1.3% isn’t a huge difference at all, and it was a bit of an issue last year without Mitchell Robinson for large swaths of the season (the team got its DREBs 5% more with Mitch than without last year). So it’s not entirely something new. But it’s not OK, either.

Positive: IQ was looking absolutely spicy.

I’ve spent many words talking about the defense, in particular the excess (and poor quality) double teaming and poor 3-point defense, but at the half Giannis was 1-6, and the Bucks as a team had two free throws. They were in the game because of great shooting (11-22 from three at the half), but the bigger story to me was clearly the offensive foibles of the Knicks starters. Julius scored 13 in the first, masking the troubles they collectively are having. More on that shortly…

Third quarter

My notes from the third quarter are very sad. The starters picked up where they left off — lots of Julius ball, not much else schematically. Even when they did create advantages, they couldn’t convert — Julius had a crossover on Portis that drew a gasp from the crowd, and hit RJ in the hands in the corner, but RJ couldn’t convert. Fournier fired a three without hesitation for the first time in days, and it rimmed out. Randle got a clean, open catch-and-shoot look, and bricked it. RJB airballed a pull-up. IQ turned the ball over inbounding. 

Prez rant:

The starting unit offense during this quarter, and this season, is pretty sad. Yes, the Knicks’ talent has led them to have a great offensive rating despite that, as has their bench explosions. Yes, the starters’ defense has been ass too. I wanna talk about their offense, though. It has, more often than not, been Julius hero ball (with a little Julius drive and kick). Sometimes we’ll get Kemba throwing random pull-ups, a very hot/cold proposition. This is all peppered with the occasional RJB transition bucket spot-up three or Mitch put-back dunk. 

However, Kemba probes are gone (his drive frequency is about the same as last year, but his shots at the rim are down a tick both in volume and accuracy). Kemba/Mitch/Evan spread PnR with Mitch, and the oops and corner threes that go with it, seem to be gone. Even RJB pistol plays are few and far between right now. There’s no Fournier/Julius empty side two-man game, despite that working well early in the year. No Kemba off-ball action (9% of his shots on the Knicks are catch-and-shoot, where a full 32% were catch-and-shoot last year in Boston).

The insane thing is it’s not like teams are sniffing these things out - the starters don’t seem to be trying to accomplish any of this half the time. This is why I personally hesitate to put it on any one player, like Kemba or Fournier or Julius — to me, it is on all of them. Julius needs to call Evan for the two-man game. Kemba needs to organize in addition to probing more — the burst is still there, he just seems reluctant to use it. They all, except Julius, need to be a little bit more selfish, oddly. With more shot creators comes more responsibility to take action rather than simply aimlessly floating and tentatively shooting.

/end rant

In addition to spilling into my notes, the frustration from the lack of offense apparently also spilled onto the defensive end, where the starters — yes, every single one of the five of them — embarrassed themselves with off-ball/rotational defense. Pick one starter and I’ll find you a glaring, unacceptable fuck-up that led to another Milwaukee 3-point attempt. By my count, only two makes were well defended: a Jrue three defended by Rose, and a Giannis three well defended by Taj. Neither, obviously, is a starter. 

Fourth quarter

The fourth quarter was a different game entirely. My notes are fraught with typos, as i struggled to keep up while simultaneously yelling at my TV and clapping. 

Burks started things off with a three. IQ followed with a steal and a three. They forced a 24 second violation. There was another steal, and another fast break resulting in a layup for Burks. Then a Rose semi-transition pull-up three.

Connaughton rudely interrupted the proceedings with yet another three (he would hit a completely hilarious five in the fourth, en route to a career-high seven threes).

Obi was hunting on both ends:

Notably, he decided to take the ball from the 3-point line to the hoop in the half court, a rarity. Ninety percent of the time if he gets the ball up top behind the 3-point line, he executes a hand-off, but the Bucks were top-locking the red-hot Rose, so he decided to handle the business himself. More of that, please!

An oop to Obi followed. Another huge Burks three. Then “fucking Connaughton,” according to my notes.

Taj was doing Taj stuff.

Chaos. CHAOS.

Eventually, the bench unit ran out of gas and Connaughton and Allen did not. After coming back from down 20 to tie the game, the lead ballooned back to around 10 until the close of the game. Thibs left the bench in the entire fourth quarter, perhaps as a message, perhaps to try and win the game, perhaps both reasons.

Notes

• The big question: does Thibs continue to let the starters work it out, or make rotation changes? The catch-22 is that those five are supposed to (maybe with an asterisk around Kemba, given Rose often plays with the starters too) be the best five-man unit. The one that will carry us in the playoffs. Figuring out how to get them to click is arguably his highest priority. But they keep putting themselves in holes, so does he ratchet down their time together to win more now, or let them work through it? I honestly don’t know.

• When asked, Thibs didn’t give us a cliche about playing through it or anything. If anything, he put them on notice (especially when you consider the benching they received, and their lack of availability — at home in MSG — for press).

• Regarding those threes:

• It is possible for teams to hit unlikely numbers of shots, even open ones, even considering the Knicks’ shitty defense. Otherwise, you would see tanking teams like the Rockets regularly give up seven 3-pointer games to other guys. You can have bad 3-point defense (nay, bad defense on the whole) and also get unlucky. Before today, the Knicks actually weren’t in the bottom five in opponent 3P%, despite being No. 1 (i.e., last) in opponent 3-point field goals allowed. This stuff is complicated. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, that’s all I know. Just like last year’s team was more than the sum of the individual defensive talents on the floor, this team has been defending worse than the sum of the individual defensive talent on the floor. 

That’s all I got for y’all. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. The Knicks are back at it on Friday.