Knicks 113, Bucks 98: Schrödinger’s W
In almost an identical early-game situation to their loss against Indiana on Wednesday, the Knicks flipped the script against the Bucks, staging a historically large comeback en route to beating the defending champs on the road.
Look, I’d normally never straight up rip off something from the beautiful writer that is Matthew Miranda. The Prof’s work is untouchable.
But I’m making an exception today with the theme of this recap, because it’s just too damn perfect to not do so.
You might have read in Miranda’s recap of the Knicks’ loss to the Pacers about the experiment of Schrödinger’s cat: basically a scientist hypothetically sacrificed a poor kitty in the name of science. Why Herr Schrödinger decided to hypothetically sacrifice a cat of all animals is beyond me. Were there no hypothetical cockroaches available? Or, like, a particularly intrusive hypothetical rat? C’mon. Anyway, the experiment basically puts an unknown timer on the cat’s life via an unpredictable time-released poison tied to radioactive decay. Therefore once you reach a point between the minimum and maximum amount of time that the poison could be released, there’s a period where the cat is “alive and dead” until the box is opened, even if in actuality it’s an either/or situation.
Anyway, here’s why I’m repeating Miranda’s great simile from the other day: in the Indiana game, the Knicks went down early and spent all game clawing back, and there was a certain point (when the Knicks closed the lead to two points) where, if you turned off your TV, you could have been talked into either the outcome that the Knicks won, or the outcome that the Knicks lost. Of course, once you opened your favorite sports app of choice, you would have been greeted by the unfortunate reality that the trigger was tripped, and your poor Knicks were poisoned and died after you turned the TV off.
Similarly, the Knicks went down as many as 21 points against the Bucks in the first half of Friday’s game. Things looked pretty bleak, but the Knicks once again clawed back, making it just a 7-point game at halftime. In the third quarter, with 4:03 remaining, the Knicks closed the Bucks lead to four points after a back-and-forth start to the second half. Maybe you’re averse to high-pressure situations in basketball games (if you’re reading this, we both know you’re a Knicks fan — you eat, sleep, and breathe high-pressure basketball and fake comebacks. But just play along). So let’s say, hypothetically, you turned the game off partway through the nail-biting minute and a half before the Knicks would score again, unable to handle the teetering scale of heartbreak and jubilation playing see-saw in front of you. If your next interaction with anyone was asking an hour later whether the Knicks had won or lost the game, the possibilities of life or death for the Knicks in this game — 5-4 or 6-3, three-game skid or record-breaking comeback — would have been roughly equally possible to you.
Well, if you’re reading this and weren’t aware of the result until just now, let me tell you — this Schrödinger’s cat of a Knicks team didn’t just avoid the poison bottle. It picked the lock to its prison, emerged, and clawed Herr Schrödinger’s eyes out before pissing on the eight-point buck bust on his wall. Schrödinger’s Knicks were — and for now, are — very much alive.
This game started roughly how you’d imagine, based off how the Knicks had played in their previous six-and-a-half quarters. New York came out flat. Sloppy. They looked somewhat disinterested with the game going on on the court, wanting to basically just stand in place and shoot 3-pointers to disastrously terrible effect (3-16 from deep in the first quarter). The Bucks, meanwhile — yeah, they’re the defending champions, but no, they should not have been walloping the Knicks as hard as they did. The less-powerful Knicks beat this team twice out of three last year (though one featured the Bucks playing more or less a G League squad in a game that was way closer than the Knicks should’ve let it be, but shhhh), and Friday’s version of the Bucks was short second-best player Khris Middleton.
All of this is to say, the Knicks looked fucking pathetic.
Luckily, the bench exists, and on the bench are a number of players you might be familiar with — Obi Toppin, Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley, and Nerlens Noel, to name a few that wound up affecting this game overwhelmingly positively.
I’m not gonna front like that Obi dunk swung the whole game or anything, and to be clear, it was his only points all game — but, to me, it was the first point in the game where I even remotely considered that the Knicks had the drive or the juice to maybe make this a game.
And make it a game, they would. Rose would ignite the offense in a way that we hadn’t seen for a few games, and a way that he desperately needed to as Kemba Walker’s cold streak stretched to two games. Rose finished with 23 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and two steals off the bench, including one drive that made you think he was going to throw it down like the D-Rose of old, only for him to finesse that layup in like the D-Rose of new.
Rose’s backcourt partner, Quickley, didn’t disappoint either. Nine points, one assist, three steals, just 1-3 from deep… still pretty modest by the lofty standards IQ set a year ago. But he made maybe the most crucial bucket of this whole game — the one that tied things up.
Again, you’re a Knicks fan. I know you know how the fake comeback game goes. The Knicks make their run; they get their opponent against the wall; the opponent, like a wounded tiger, lashes out with one last burst of fury, and escapes with a win. The bucket to tie (or take the lead) is always the toughest one to get, because it’s the one that a team that was previously up by double digits never wants to give up. Quickley did just that, securing the steal and finishing the transition dunk to break the Bucks’ spirit. He took an extra second to rub some salt in the wound just moments later:
Noel, back in his second game after missing the first seven contests, reminded why he earned a pretty hefty contract from the Knicks this offseason even if he ends up strictly backing up Mitchell Robinson the entire season — this guy just has defensive instincts that are arguably unmatched in the NBA, which led him to three steals and a block, plus an uncharacteristic 13 boards.
So yeah, the bench killed it, and the Knicks got back in the game. And considering the running part of the recap is going a little long, I’ll yadda yadda and just tell you that the Knicks wound up winning by 15 and leading by as many as 22 after at one point trailing by 21. Dominant doesn’t even begin to describe what they did in this second half. They took the defending champs — yes, again, down their second-best player and also Brook Lopez, but still featuring a two-time MVP and reigning Finals MVP — and completely neutered them in the second half after being spanked early.
Notes
— So what I saved for the notes, lest I end up with none, was Julius Randle. The Knicks’ star kicked ass. Many, myself included, have been critical of him lately for seeming disinterested and perhaps reverting back to some of his bad habits from 2019-20. This game was a loud proclamation that he can be a leader by example and inspire this team to do better — granted, it came after that first stint by the bench, but Randle carried the team with banner effort the rest of the way out on his way to a game-high 32 points, 12 rebounds, and four assists on 50% shooting.
— RJ Barrett might be making a legit star turn here. Coming into the season, it would’ve been easy to see a world where he could’ve potentially quietly developed as the fourth option on the Knicks behind Randle, Kemba Walker, and Evan Fournier. Sure, he’d have had some moments here and there, but he’d ultimately settle in roughly where he’d been his sophomore year, maybe with some better flashes, maybe with better efficiency, but ultimately leading fans to say “OK, yeah, he’s still like a year away.”
Nah. Kemba clearly is the one whose star-like performances are going to come in fits and spurts. Fournier is definitely talented, but also runs hot and cold, like a French JR Smith with a euro. RJ, meanwhile, seems like he’s going to consistently be the Knicks’ first or second option on any given night, and not look like he’s punching above his weight doing it.
To be clear, he looked like shit to start this game. When Derek Reifer, the guy who literally runs a Twitter page dedicated to whether RJ Barrett is playing basketball or not, specifically comes into the Strickland Slack channel to say that RJ is playing like shit, you know he’s playing like shit. He shot 2-6 in the first quarter, he was a team-high -17 in that first period (along with Randle and Fournier), and he had zero assists to two turnovers after throwing some questionable passes.
But, as stars do, he settled in as the game went on, and continued his trend of being an absolute force of nature in the second half, dropping in 10 points and ending the game with 20 points and a vastly improved +15, highest among the starters. He’s now dropped 20 or more points in five straight games after a rough start to the season.
— I forgot to give Randle props for his defense, too. That was probably the biggest plus of his game. An engaged Randle on defense and on the boards sets the tone for the rest of the team, and I actually think when he’s getting stops he tends to get pumped up and shoot better — which is ironic because I think sometimes a few misses on the other end can lead to him not defending as hard. Maybe we’ve got a classic chicken-or-egg situation here to go with our Schrödinger’s cat.
— Those looking to watch the game tonight found themselves having to choose between Clyde Frazier (with Kenny Albert) on MSG, or Mike Breen (with Doris Burke) on ESPN. I come from a family with divorced parents, and whenever these situations come up I feel as if I’m nine years old and faced with a decision of choosing if I wanted to stay with my mom or dad for a given weekend right in front of their faces. Luckily my parents aren’t monsters so they never made me do that — they just quietly figured that out behind the scenes. Tonight, when forced to make the choice myself, I went with Uncle Clyde. Honestly, given the choice, I’ll usually go stay with Uncle Clyde.
— I didn’t write it down and I honestly don’t care to look it up, because I wasn’t planning on writing this recap and finding weird stats like this is a pain in the ass, but I think they said on the broadcast that this was the first time the Knicks were ever down by double digits (or maybe it was 20-plus) and came back to win by double digits.
And so there you have it. The Knicks took round one with the defending champs, and round two is coming up quick with a showdown at MSG on Wednesday. But before that, they’ve got their first back-to-back of the season, Sunday against Cleveland at home and Monday in Philly against the Sixers. Things are about to get fun. Luckily, it seems like the Knicks might have just gotten their heads back on straight.
