Bucks 123, Knicks 108: A tidal wave is coming

The Knicks lost yet another game, one where they mostly gave it their all but just weren’t enough for the defending champs. Questions abound as we inch towards the NBA trade deadline.

Well, that was definitely a basketball game. 

The Knicks lost their third in a row and sixth out of their last seven against the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks. And while the team certainly fought — they cut the deficit to two points early in the fourth quarter — a cloud of aimlessness hovers over both the team and the collection of human beings who, for some reason, continue to root for this basketball team. One that appears to not be going away until the trade deadline on Feb. 10, when changes will almost certainly be coming. Still, there was a basketball game tonight, so let’s discuss it.

A little bit of energy

All of the talk coming into last night’s game had a singular focus: the struggles of the starting lineup. There was definite, albeit pessimistic, interest in how Tom Thibodeau would respond to the recent struggles. Would there be changes? 

There were a few changes (more on those later), but much of it was the same. The starting unit came out looking like they had heard the noise. In fact, I’d argue that, aside from a brief stretch in the second quarter, the first seven minutes of the game was the most connected any Knicks lineup looked all night. There was energy on both ends, the ball was moving and the team was creating good looks. 

The bench, led by Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes, took the torch and ran with it. They weren’t perfect, but they brought the vigor and intention that has made many Knick fans fall in love with them. Because of the nature of Mike Budenholzer’s rotation, the Bucks started the second quarter with Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo on the floor together (I can only assume Thibodeau’s head exploded or he thought Budenholzer broke some sort of rule, but I digress). This resulted in a great effort by the bench equating to treading water, and when Julius Randle checked back into the game, a 9-point deficit had been slightly trimmed to eight. The starters, including Randle, finished the half strong and had the Knicks within one point before “Planet” Pat Connaughton hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Lethargy

Unfortunately, most good things come to an end, and while the score remained tight throughout the third quarter, the energy and connectivity dissipated. All of a sudden, possessions with multiple actions turned into single-screen ones with the Knicks’ ball handlers seeking a mismatch that did not exist. 

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if this is a Thibs problem or a personnel problem. Thibodeau’s overall offensive playbook leaves a lot to be desired. He remains committed to having his centers, the paint-bound and largely non-threatening Mitchell Robinson and Nerlens Noel, set the majority of the screens that start the team's actions. Not only are the Knicks’ screen-setters mostly ignored by opposing defenses, they also happen to be mediocre at setting the screens. What that leads to is many forays into the paint with Knick ball handlers shadowed by two defenders. Sometimes that appears by design, as if Thibodeau believes the Knicks can exploit mismatches and react to the help all the way to a plus offense. Other times, like last night, it seems like the Knicks’ ball handlers seek these possessions out, resigned to settle for the least connected of schemes.

The fourth quarter was a mess. Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin, and Quentin Grimes scored just three of their combined 21 points during their second shift in the second half. The struggles started, fittingly, with Quickley, who continues to try to prove to Thibodeau, as well as a small segment of Knick fans, that he has the chops to run an offense beyond his scoring. He is clearly thinking too much. Sometimes you can even see the wheels turning in his head. Should he shoot? What would a point guard do? 

This time it was the starters who were placed in a hole not of their own doing. When RJ Barrett, Kemba Walker, and Evan Fournier re-entered the game, the lead had ballooned back to 13. The Knicks did not get within single digits again.

Randle, Thibs, and the rotations saga

Julius Randle didn’t play a particularly offensive game. Especially by his standards as of late. The Bucks, a great defensive team when they want to be, and incredibly well-coached, clearly entered the game with the majority of their focus on Randle. When he touched the ball he saw multiple defenders. Thus, he spent a lot of time off the ball. And his defensive effort was not nearly as egregious as the one we saw in Miami Wednesday night.

Despite that, something still just seemed… off. The amount of incidents that represent a man losing interest in playing for this team. There was the timeout the Bucks called after a Fournier basket when Fournier reached out his hand to high-five Randle and Randle shrugged it off. There was the Obi Toppin foul that saw him go sprawling to the floor below the basket when Randle, the closest teammate to Toppin, looked straight at him then simply walked away as two other teammates came from further away to help him up. And, finally, there was another example of a team huddle that saw Randle intentionally removed. 

Randle is so far removed from the player we saw last season it is hard to wrap my head around it. He is a man merely going through the motions. Which begs the question why he is the one player whose role feels untouchable. If Randle has tuned Thibodeau out, as it appears, why has Thibodeau remained so loyal to the former Second Team All-NBA player?

On some level, I get Randle’s frustration, because, as I touched on last week, Thibodeau has not exactly made Randle’s life easier. In the few Randle-initiated possessions in which he looked to score — he took only nine shots last night, his third-lowest of the season — the Bucks were always looking to rotate off whatever center was standing in no man's land. Frustration has to set in eventually.

But Thibodeau loosened his grip on his rotations last night, in a way that could potentially have reduced the difficulty of Randle’s efforts. In the fourth quarter, Randle re-entered the game after just under three minutes of rest. If you’re reading this, and you did not watch the game, I’m sure you rolled your eyes a little reading that last sentence, because the underlying implication of it is that Toppin got a quick hook. He did not.

For the first time in what seems like months, Toppin and Randle shared the court together. In a night defined by ambivalence, Thibodeau threw Knick fans an olive branch, almost as if to say, “I hear you.” While it was only a few minutes, it was the most exciting stretch in recent memory for a discouraged fanbase. We’re all ready for new things. We all want Thibodeau to be open to trying new things. And Thibodeau, despite his apparent stubbornness, is an incredibly intelligent man. He knows change is right around the corner, about to be thrust upon us. He knows the status quo he has clung desperately to, for frustratingly long, is not working. A tidal wave is coming. The only question left is, will Julius Randle still be listening when it does?