Knicks fall to Bucks to open in-season tournament despite Jalen Brunson's 45 points
Knicks' Jalen Brunson tries to get past Milwaukee Bucks' Jae Crowder during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Nov. 3, 2023, in Milwaukee. Credit: AP/Morry Gash
MILWAUKEE — The court at Fiserv Forum was adorned in a mix of odd color schemes and the seats in the arena were covered by T-shirts heralding the start of the NBA’s latest scheme, the in-season tournament.
But in the locker rooms and on the sidelines, both sides insisted that this game would be no different from any other one — even with the word filtering out Friday that not only the players but the coaches would be playing for prize money.
And really, even with the added incentives and courts around the NBA appearing as if they’d been tagged by graffiti artists with too much paint, nothing changed. Julius Randle still could not find his shot. The Knicks still struggled to find a way to fill the gap left by RJ Barrett’s absence. And in their first tournament game, despite 45 points by Jalen Brunson, they saw their early-season troubles continue with a 110-105 loss to the Bucks.
Brunson did all he could, scoring 29 points in the second half and almost singlehandedly carrying the Knicks (2-4) to the finish line. His three-pointer with 1:10 remaining gave the Knicks, who had trailed by 14 points early in the third quarter, a two-point lead. But the one-man show wasn’t going to beat a championship-contending team like the Bucks (3-2), particularly on a night when they entered with an equal sense of desperation.
Quentin Grimes had 17 points, but the three remaining starters shot 7-for-33. And the most confounding problem again was Randle, who entered the game having shot 27.6% from the field and 25.8% from three-point range. He had 16 points and 12 rebounds but shot 5-for-20 overall and 1-for-9 from beyond the arc.
“I think I’m just seeing a lot of bodies,” Randle said. “Like I said, it’s a lot of bodies, just crowded. I think there’s some things that we can do different, but you know, we’ve just gotta keep working with it and keep staying at it. I’m just not in rhythm. Not in rhythm. Everything just seems a little bit off. You just start pressing a little bit, but like I said, I’ve just gotta stay with it. Keep working.”
“It happens. It’s part of basketball,” Brunson said. “This dude, he has a great mindset, a great work ethic. He comes in every day, does what he has to do, does his routine and all that stuff. The ball is not going through the hoop right now for him. I tell him every day I’m with him. We’re going to work through this, everything. When I have days I’m not making shots, he says the same to me. It’s just, it’s all right. I mean, he’s missing shots but we’re still in games. He’s still contributing in a big way. I’m not going to get into all that stuff, but his heart’s still there. He just has to get over this little hump.”
Randle took two shots in the third quarter and didn’t attempt a shot in the fourth quarter until he received a pass with the shot clock almost down to zero and misfired from three-point range with 5:34 left.
“Just got to trust the process,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “If you’re open, you got to shoot . . . But I thought we created a lot of good open looks. You can’t hesitate, you got to go.”
Randle finally scored his first points of the second half with 3:19 to play to pull the Knicks within two. He scored again with 1:43 to play to make it a one-point game. Brunson’s three-pointer gave them their first lead of the second half at 103-101, but Damian Lillard then gave the Bucks the lead for good.
Lillard (30 points) hit a three-pointer seven seconds after Brunson’s three and then scored on a cut to the basket, taking a pass from Khris Middleton and drawing a foul on Grimes for a three-point play and a four-point lead with 37 seconds left.
“There’s obviously a lot of things to take away from these games that are positive,” Brunson said. “We still lose, there’s still a tally in the loss column. Just got to continue to stick together, fight through a little bit of adversity right now.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
