Welp.
The Milwaukee Bucks had their butts handed to them by the New York Knicks 140-106. Although the first quarter featured some of the best basketball I’ve seen all here, that went away in a hurry as Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns annihilated the Bucks with 74 points combined. Giannis and Dame combined for a mere 46 points, but as the score may indicate, the problem was primarily on the other end of the floor. New York rocking the Bucks earlier this season makes this receipt harder to discount. Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below.
What Did We Learn?
The Knicks are a bad matchup for the Bucks! Jalen Brunson shredded both AJs, requiring Doc to go to Pat Connaughton (shudder) and MarJon Beauchamp (SHUDDER) early. The absence of Gary Trent Jr. and Ryan Rollins didn’t help, but Delon Wright not seeing minutes until the fourth quarter was discouraging to say the least. A guy like Jrue Holiday would be nice to have…
Still, even the 2021 Bucks probably wouldn’t have had an answer for KAT on this team, especially with the wings between him and JB. Although it wasn’t quite as bad as his performance on Brook the first time out, his size and speed were not contained by Giannis and especially Bobby this time out. I really don’t know what the answer is here.
Taken together, gulp!
Three Corner Threes
The Knicks shot 7/11 on corner threes. Let’s look at three of them.
Miscommunication?
Khris is on Hart and TP is on Brunson. Brunson drives to the rim trailed by TP. Khris puts himself between Brunson and the basket, leaving Hart open in the corner for a three. Khris looks consternated.
Accountability?
Per Jack Trehearne, is this good enough from Dame? How about this?
…By Design?
McBride drives baseline with Connaughton and Bobby meets them close to the rim. With Bobby’s man Achiuwa lurking in the paint, both Giannis and AJG converge on him. That leaves Brunson open in the corner, even if AJG is quick to cover. The sheer number of times that variations on this play happened today makes me wonder if it’s a feature, not a bug.
Bonus Bucks Bits
- AJax giveth (two nice drives), AJax taketh (three early fouls), AJax goeth to the bench at the 8:29 mark on the first quarter.
- It was a Cam Payne revenge game. He finished 4/7 from deep to the tune of 18 points.
- The Knicks shot more threes (41 to 34) at a better clip (43.9% to 29.4%). Them’s basketball.
- Meanwhile, the Bucks took 27 shots that were not at the rim or outside the perimeter, whereas the Knicks took only 14.
- The in-game entertainment was one-note, but shout-out to the kids who were that note. So much choreo!
- TP drew a couple offensive fouls.
- Dame threw the ball out of bounds a couple times, a recurring theme as of late. An open question whether he or the intended target were at fault, but hiccups like these might indicate that Doc’s system still (?!) hasn’t fully sunk in.
- Stanley Umude missed three shots, committed a foul, and turned the ball over.
- Last, this was fun!
Up Next
Milwaukee returns for a four-game homestead, starting with the white-hot Sacramento Kings on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. Central. Watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.
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