Bucks 119, Knicks 108: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A loss that can be all things to all people is no loss at all.
After nine years recapping Knick games, last night’s 119-108 loss in Milwaukee has me at a first: a loss for words. The game ended hours ago. I’ve thought about it, taken a break from thinking about it, gone back to thinking about it and am no closer to understanding than I felt when it ended. It’s not that the game didn’t make sense. It’s that it made every kind of sense, some of which contradict. Imagine a mathematics where the answer to everything was “Sure!” That’s where I’m at.
The Knicks never threatened to win this game. Not once. The Bucks led throughout. Midway through the first quarter New York looked wobbly, yet they ended the frame down two. After it looked like they’d gone into the half down three following a Jalen Brunson halfcourt heave, the scourge that is instant replay decreed the shot was late. So the Knicks came into the second half down six, into the fourth quarter down 11, and trailed by nearly 20 in the fourth, at which point the game seemed a variation on a theme we see hundreds of times every season: the heavy overwhelming a lesser foe.
In so many ways, these Bucks are the worst matchup for these Knicks. Julius Randle has shown he has All-NBA Second Team ability, but against the bigger, longer, better Giannis Antetokounmpo, Randle, a New York 10, is but a Milwaukee 6. Jalen Brunson has been a revelation with the Knicks, but Jrue Holiday isn’t Dennis Smith Jr.; he’s as good a defensive player as there is in basketball, and Brunson looked painfully aware of it. Khris Middleton didn’t even play and was more of a positive for his team than RJ Barrett was for his. New York’s starters shot 35%. So yeah, trailing throughout and being down big in the fourth sounded about right.
Except that being your takeaway is like your takeaway from the original Star Wars movies being that Luke lost a hand. The Knicks bent all night, bent for 48 minutes, and that was disappointing, if not expected when a title favorite with the league’s best player hosts a dark horse for the 8th seed. To their credit, the Knicks never broke.
They fought back time and time again. They could have folded early. Could’ve folded late. The Bucks were ready to wrap this win up long before it became safely theirs. For most of the final five minutes, they didn’t score a point. For all Randle’s struggles, he didn’t appear to lose focus or try to do more than he could. RJ kept struggling, but also kept coming. Obi Toppin, Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley had good stretches. It’s worth wondering how differently you’d feel if New York had traded IQ, Obi, Cam Reddish and six first-round picks/swaps to acquire Donovan Mitchell and also have three wins over inferior opponents sandwiched between losses to Memphis and Milwaukee.
Wednesday in Charlotte, one key sequence in the game was a Hornet 4-on-1 push late in the game when they failed to get a shot off. There was another failed 4-on-1 in this one, equally instructive, this time not to New York’s hustle but to their humble status as a long way down the road to respectability. Randle, RJ, Evan Fournier and Isaiah Hartenstein had the three-man advantage in the last minute of the first half. As Randle pushed the ball up the floor, Fournier peeled off to the left, behind the 3-point line. At this point, a number of options existed, all encouraging.
Randle could have driven all the way to the hoop, forcing Brook Lopez to contest, likely either drawing a foul or drawing the only defender around to him, leaving Barrett and Hartenstein open. Randle could have dished to Fournier for an open three. Instead, Randle picked up his dribble after barely passing the 3-point arc and broke a cardinal rule of fast breaking by passing to the 7-footer before Hartenstein had even reached the paint. Most bigs can’t avoid rumbling into a charge; Hartenstein managed a pass to RJ, who lofted a baseline prayer left unanswered. The Lord works in mysterious ways; good defense doesn’t. Not a single Buck flinched to even fake contesting Barrett’s shot. They were satisfied with that outcome, even without knowing its result. Are you?
What is the takeaway from this game? If you didn’t watch and just read the box score, it’d make sense. Not if you watched, though. There was plenty to be let down by and lots to like. Sometimes life sticks you in a fight you know you can’t win. What do you do? You make sure your victorious opponent walks away knowing they’ve been in a fight. I doubt the Bucks ever worried they’d lose this game. I doubt they’ll forget the Knicks getting up off the mat every time they got knocked down, all the way into the 48th minute.
That’s three wins over lesser teams and two hard-fought Ls against their betters. Last night New York faced one of the league’s bigger starting frontlines in Antetokounmpo, Lopez and Bobby Portis. Next game is Sunday evening in Cleveland, whose starting frontcourt is also supersized with Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Dean Wade. The Cavaliers are better than the Knicks, though not quite at the level of the Grizzlies or Bucks. In losing last night, did the Knicks learn anything they can use going forward? We’ll see.
