The Knicks host the Bucks for their third matchup with Milwaukee this season. The Knicks came very close against Milwaukee in the most recent one of those first two games, so hopefully they finally get over the hump against Milwaukee tonight!
Let’s go, Knicks!
170 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Bucks: Five for Fighting?”
Marques Johnson looking good. Those early to mid-80’s Bucks teams were dynamite, kind of lost in the Bird-Magic shuffle.
From last thread
>I’m not a box score fan but I am a Knicks fan and as I told you the other day when you did this shtick, the Knicks are worse with Hartenstein on the court.<
They are worse with Hart on the court because they are so much better with Mitch on the court. If Kareem was the starter, the team would be worse with Mitch on the court. I'm a fan of long term on/off, but short term is very volatile and always requires a little more analysis of lineup combinations, replacements etc.. to figure out what's going on.
People are focusing on Hart's TS% and assists, but IMO that's misleading and missing the whole point of why he was brought here. The boxscore cannot and does not tell you what a player's role is, whether he is doing what is asked, and how well he's doing it.
If Brunson was on the court with John Stockton, his assists would decline, not because he was playing worse or being used incorrectly, but because it's preferable to have the ball in Stockton's hands way more often. The ball is often in Quick’s, Brunson’s and Randle’s hands.
Hart has not shot the ball well, but he's also shooting a different shot distribution with a specific goal in mind (space and OREBs) that's helping the TEAM but also contributing to his lower TS%.
He has to shoot better from outside than he has, but to me, he’s mostly doing what is being asked of him. Given the players we have, what’s being asked are the correct things to maximize space and OREBs for others.
Randle’s hair is looking even more homeless tonight. I like it.
Let’s see if Julius can have a big game, the Bucks have had his number…
Whatever happens, please don’t let that dirty fucker Grayson Allen beat us.
Bucks lineup is even weirder than ours.
Come on, Mitch…get out on that!
Gooooo Knicks!
Not going so good so far…
Not a good start. Let’s talk.
Brunsooon
3’s aren’t falling…
Jrue with 3 quick fouls is great for us.
Grimes looking like the Tier 16f up-and-comer he is
Brickathon at MSG tonight
Bucks signed ISM to a 10 day contract before the game…
“Let’s see if Julius can have a big game, the Bucks have had his number…”
Oh well…
I think at least over of Jrue’s fouls was due to Grimes stifling him on D. He looked frustrated.
Maybe Randle should stop with the 3Ps for now.
Edit: Or maybe all Knicks should stop 😀 😛
Is 2 for 13 good?
I consider this a big game. It’ll tell us something. I don’t care if Middleton is out.
Did y’all hear Mitch pre-game? He’s not lacking confidence, is he?
I like that Julius is laughing off his offensive woes. Not getting too heavy about it.
Both teams (except Brunson) must have sparked up in the locker room or something
Although it didn’t mean he should keeping shooting 3s
Not watching but somehow Randle has already missed seven 3s?
I didn’t, what did he say?
“I didn’t, what did he say?”
Nobody knows, but it sounded tough…
He’s so off that he even missed a layup all alone, and only scored at the 2nd try.
Brunson 13, Bucks 15
Nice. I think he is improving as the season goes on.
Obi with the quickest cameo in history…
Brunson and the Bums
Deuce got a new barber…
Randle single-handedly ruining the FG% for my fantasy team!
Won’t Julius Randle think of me, someone who does propaganda about his TS% on the internet?
Julius is awful on O, but the good news is he’s held Giannis to 2 points
JVG surpassed his mentor (Riley), can Thibs surpass his? 😀
Randle doing his best Starks game 7 impression
Is 2 points on 12 shots good?
I’m a little baffled how these teams each scored 22… That’s seems high, all things considered
Randle with an actual good, last-moment, end-of-quarter play, driving and dishing out to the corner. Unfortunately it was to iHart.
Randle decided to revert to the mean in 1 quarter
Mitch basically said that you need 3 guys to deal with him under the boards. That he’s 270 and impossible to move. He wasn’t shy about his greatness.
Mean reversion is a bitch
ex brunson we went 2-21
Hartenstein dropping what should’ve been an easy basket off a pass from Brunson is one of those little things he does that doesn’t show up in the box score but helps the TEAM
Here’s a link (I hope): ‘I’m a dangerous man’: Knicks big man Mitchell Robinson sends stern warning to NBA amid dominant stretch
No excuse for not boxing out, Evian
IQ is nearly as clever as Brunson
My kingdom for a shooting coach…
Randle 2 for his last 2 where are the haters now
And a tap-in almost on the basket that he missed !?
Quick oozing confidence
My Little Deuce Coup…
Eastern Conference 1994 ball
Deuce Deuce!
Randle’s up to 9 points on 17 shots…woohoo!
This play should give a lot of confidence to Deuce. Let’s hope he starts hitting shots like he did on the G-League.
fournier misses the dungeon food
This board cracks me up, IQ with maybe his best quarter of the season and it’s all about Deuce
“I guess the cleaning bills were too expensive” 😀
Don’t ever leave us, Clyde!
Don’t think we’re keeping IQ for $12M AAV but I’m fine with that
Grimes just moved up one tier with that play 😀
Two nice blocks from Lopez tonight… Deserves some props
Mitch gotta go stronger than that…
Oh sorry, D-Mar, i talked about Grimes and only Quick was allowed 😀
Loving the intensity tonight. Wonder if it’s a bit of a statement.
If we trade IQ I’ll be stalking Leon…
“ Oh sorry, D-Mar, i talked about Grimes and only Quick was allowed 😀”
No problem Cyber, freedom of speech and all 😁
is obi on a seconds limit
That defense was awfully impressive
When RJ is available again he shouldn’t be a starter, although he probably will be. Grimes or Quick are earning the right to keep being the starters.
Quickley is 23, I don’t know how you can trade him.
“That defense was awfully impressive”
…as opposed to the offense, which was impressively awful…
Leon won’t trade any of Brunson, Quick, Grimes, RJ, Randle and Mitch.
There was diving on the floor and keeping balls alive and some Derek Harper / Pablo Prigioni back court steals. I’ll root for that all day long.
We really have to figure out a way to keep letting IQ cook when RJ is back. I mean at what point do we simply prioritize the development of the objectively superior player?
I guess you wouldn’t say Obi has been the difference in this game…
it doesn’t really feel like we’re winning…
Stop the fight! Randle made a 3!
excellent cut by randle. that’s the most valuable thing he could add.
What a killer non-call, that’s 3 points taken away from us
loving the determination of our team right now…
Who’s this Giannis guy anyway?
Julius is gassed
Is Mitch/Randle the league’s best frontcourt now?
Obi would’ve made both those dunks…
But this version of Randle is All-NBA
gotta imagine the under is a lock tonight…
Bad sequence there…
that was really almost a great dunk by Julius
Don’t love that shot from Jalen
Randle has to see that coming
Grimes ate Holiday up on that possession
Talking Sims vs. Hart, right now I’d like to see someone with moving hands and feet in to guard Giannis; i.e., Sims.
+/- may be noisy, but it’s the only stat that gives you a sense of how dominant Mitch has been
How the fuck do the refs miss that elbow by Portis????
How did the ref miss that elbow by Portis?!
Fukin’ nasty-ass Portis…
Grimes has been on Jrue like a cheap suit
Portis didn’t do any of that “you love him when he’s on your side” shit when he was here
Without IQ we’d be down 20…
As poorly as Randle is shooting tonight, he’s playing like an animal.
Hartenstein shtinks
Hart with a Charles Smith flashback…
Hart with a Kobe Assist
good news. hart is no longer shooting 56pct from the restricted area.
We want Sims!
…and the foul on the other end. Hart’s ass.
Mitch would’ve had 3 dunks on that play
Even Hart thinks Sims should be playing
Hartenstein is simply missing bunnies for the sake of the TEAM
Yeah…Hart is a stiff
Who’s that guy from the local rec league that keeps torching us?
Refs are asleep.
Nice end of quarter play by the Bucks
are we really still winning…
Those last 2 minutes will come back to haunt us…
not to be mean, hart is kind of spastic out there…doesn’t seem to move with solid purpose or skill…
Memo to the Knicks, Bucks are just gonna launch a ton of 3pters in the 4th quarter so it’ll be wise to stop having all 5 guys protect the rim and start staying home on the perimeter a bit more.
OBI!
I approve BBA’s memo
I hate it when I’m right….
Why can’t this team hold a lead??? Really, why?
The Bucks just have our number unfortunately. They move the ball so well on offense.
Keep cool, we’re going to win this
Situational basketball. They have a gigantic athletic front line and tons of three pointer shooters. So let’s play Hartenstein and Fournier.
Still, can’t believe we’re right there shooting 21.6% from three at high volume…
Nobody over 6′ 2″ is allowed to shoot for the Knicks the rest of the game.
We’re helping on the wrong guys
Evian making it rain
Great defense by Jrue, great follow by Randle
And BBA prescient again. For the love of God stay home on the shooters!!
Brunson the killa!!
Gonna be nice and not say what’s on my mind about a certain French player …
Guard a 3, anybody…
Fournier’s hanging out in the paint like he’s 7 feet tall, but doesn’t even bother to block out.
I like Brunson.
No one in foul trouble for either team, which is shocking considering the physicality…
That may have been a foul, Julius…
Randle is horrible in these last minute situations…why do we feature him?
IQ is so good on defense he can make other players fall out of bounds with his mind
Oy
Fucking Jrue
very frustrating!
Needed to get the fucking rebound.
Most predictable 4th quarter ever.
Feels like the Bucks shot 90% from 3 in the 4th quarter
ugh, jrue closed us out…bucks hit a lot of threes in the second half…oh well…
Starting a collection for the statue to Brunson
Games like this make me change my mind and hope the Knicks miss the playoffs cause I have very little interest in watching them get swept by one of the Top 3 teams in the East.
That was completely clueless …
Get Brunson some damn help
Of all the possible ways to handle the last 24 seconds, that was…not one
Reasons we losing
1) 3pt defense
2) coaching
3) timely rebounding
@BBA, I disagree – this is how they learn to beat good teams in tight games. It’s a learning curve.
There’s only 1 real reason the Knicks lost this game and I called it before the 4th quarter started.
thibs thinks running the two man game and freezing out the other 3 guys is gonna win games at the end…he’s got another thing coming…especially when one of them is julius randle..
Where’s Jeremy Sochan when you need him?
The negativity on this site is unbelievable, we lost to an NBA title favorite by 4 points.
a “good” loss, I guess…
next…
yikes, that pacer game wednesday ain’t gonna be easy…
While painful, I don’t consider this a terrible loss. Bucks are true contenders and Ingles looks healthy enough to really help them. Beating TOR and SAS in these kind of games is a significant level down.
I dropped Grimes to tier -27E after this game.
The possession where we let them get two offensive rebounds that ended in a Holiday 3 felt like the dagger. As long as we’re all airing questionably valid grievances I’ll contribute that we would’ve won if Sims took Hart’s minutes.
If this game was in Milwaukee Knicks probably hold on but since it was at MSG they had no chance.
“The possession where we let them get two offensive rebounds that ended in a Holiday 3 felt like the dagger.”
That and Fournier unnecessarily leaving PC open in the corner…
Alan and Monica discussing those 2 possessions
Not to trigger the Mitchophiles, but having five players on the floor that can be a threat with the ball outside of 3 feet like Milwaukee does (as well as a lot of good teams) is something I’d like to see one of these days.
we had/have 4 out of 5 that are “threats outside of 3 feet”….our coach thinks that 2 of them should just be decorative in the last 2 to 3 minutes of crunch time…
Oh well, at least Tankathon has us taking Brice Sensabaugh and Rayan Rupert with out two picks, which would make me quite happy.
We missed way too many 3s. I get Randle taking 3s instead of long 2s, but it’s a mistake for him to shoot 3s as a weapon like he does some nights, even if they happen to go in that night.
They stepped on the gas on both sides when it came time to win the game as you just sort of knew they would.
Not much to learn from this one. They are better than us.
Next
At least Immanuel has risen from the dead.
Great night for Brunson.
Bucks are a good squad.
Late game execution continues to bedevil us. I guess it’s comforting though that literally every loss in the last month has been a close game where we had the lead late and just couldn’t hold on. I think part of the late game collapses is coaching but also part of it is we just don’t quite have the talent or experience to close out these games especially against the elite teams or if the other team has a superstar.
Some of this is experience. Maybe all these close losses will help us come playoff time. Some of it is coaching and how we approach the end of games.
But we also are missing one piece to take us from a good team to a real contender.
I’m glad Leon didn’t trade for Mitchell. We’d definitely be better now if he did but a Brunson/Mitchell backcourt would eventually get exposed defensively in the playoffs. That would be a second round exit type team and Danny was asking for so much that after we made that trade, we’d have very little room left to improve upon that team.
So we gotta be patient. Let her young players continue to improve and wait for the right star to become available somehow. They gotta be the right age timeline wise and the right fit roster wise.
Things will shake up after the season and playoffs end. They always do. The only bad contract we have is Fournier and that one isn’t that bad and should be moveable by the off-season or next season. We got draft picks. We got a lot of young players who are more attractive trade wise now than when the season started. Randle is definitely more moveable now than he was this summer.
These losses are frustrating but big picture wise, they show we’re improving and in a good spot.