MILWAUKEE — On Nov. 8, the Milwaukee Bucks went to New York City and lost to the Knicks by 22 points. After the game, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo told reporters that he believed his team did not compete as they dropped to 2-7 on the season.
Following a 34-point drubbing on the Bucks’ second trip to New York, a loss that dropped the Bucks to 0-8 against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference, Antetokounmpo told reporters that his team needed to “get our stuff together” and find a way to play much better against the best teams in the East.
In the Bucks’ first matchup against the Knicks in Fiserv Forum, the Bucks put up a much better showing, but still didn’t have enough for the Knicks in a 116-107 loss on Friday. While the Bucks kept it much closer at home, Antetokounmpo didn’t think much of Milwaukee’s performance against New York once again.
“It was good, but it wasn’t enough,” Antetokounmpo (30 points, nine rebounds, seven assists) said. “They were more physical. They played with more effort than us. And they are a better team than us, simple as that.”
With Friday’s loss to the Knicks, the Bucks have now completed their regular-season slate against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. In ten games, the Bucks were winless against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Knicks this season. After Friday’s game, Antetokounmpo laid out what he thought was missing from the Bucks’ performance.
“If you play a team that is — I don’t know what they are, two in the East, three in the East, whatever they are — and they beat you already twice, you gotta come out and play with higher level of intensity,” Antetokounmpo said. “You gotta hit first; you gotta put your body in the line. You just gotta want it more. Play with more energy than them. And I don’t think we did for 48 minutes. We have to do it more.
“If we have the opportunity to see them, maybe in the playoffs or whoever we see in the playoffs, we have to be the toughest, nastiest team out there. We have to. That’s the only chance we’re going to get to be good.”
Both teams played without their star point guard on Friday. Damian Lillard missed the game with right calf deep vein thrombosis, while Knicks star Jalen Brunson missed his 11th consecutive game with a right ankle sprain. But Friday’s matchup was once again dictated by Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns.
In the teams’ first matchup of the season, the Bucks tried to defend Towns with Brook Lopez. Towns used his elite 3-point shooting and quickness to torment the Bucks on his way to 32 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. After Rivers called putting Lopez on Towns a stupid decision, the Bucks made Antetokounmpo the big man’s primary defender in the second matchup, but that didn’t get Towns (30 points, 18 rebounds, four assists) or anyone else under control as the Knicks went for 140 points.
On Friday, the Bucks did a much better job on Towns, who ended the night with only 14 points (on 6-of-16 shooting) and 10 rebounds.
With Antetokounmpo on Towns for most of the night, the Bucks executed a relatively simple plan. The Bucks’ two-time MVP would stay connected to Towns at all times. On a pick-and-roll, Antetokounmpo (or whoever happened to be guarding him on a possession) stayed glued to Towns and pushed him as far away from the basket as possible. With Towns pushed further away from the basket, guards and wings were expected to go underneath the blob of big men.
That did not happen consistently enough on Friday.
Here is the first example of a mistake in that coverage:
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Rather than go underneath Antetokounmpo, Kyle Kuzma (20 points, five rebounds) ran into Towns’ screen and crumbled as OG Anunoby got all the way to the rim uncontested.
“We were supposed to go under, and that’s all we worked on this morning,” Rivers said. “And, I think in the first half, we had six times where our guy went over the top. And, if the big is pushing up, and you’re going over the top, you’re just ushering him to the basket.”
But while the Bucks’ poor execution of their defensive game plan played a role in their third loss of the season to the Knicks, the mistakes that ultimately sunk them on Friday were far more simple to see in a cursory glance at the box score.
“It wasn’t just the turnovers; it was the offensive rebounds and turnovers,” Rivers said. “I think it was the combination of those two things, and that was the difference in the game. It’s impossible to win that game.”
On Friday, the Knicks attempted 18 more shots than the Bucks. They were able to create that advantage in field goal attempts through 16 turnovers by the Bucks and grabbing 14 offensive rebounds for themselves.
Turnovers have been a problem for Kevin Porter Jr. throughout his tenure with the Bucks, but his first two turnovers on Friday were particularly painful because they happened on back-to-back offensive possessions and helped the Knicks’ lead balloon from six points to 12 points in the first two minutes of the second quarter.
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“We’re just trying to do too much,” Rivers said. “I thought a lot of our guys, Kuz was way better offensively, but four turnovers is too many for him. Three turnovers is too many for Scoot, especially in 13 minutes; three turnovers is too many. And then, I thought we’re a team that really trusts overall. I thought there were stretches in the game where we took the first available average shot instead of looking for the great shots. We didn’t play good to great tonight.”
For the third time this season, the Knicks played harder than the Bucks, and that showed up again on the offensive glass.
Look at this first quarter possession:
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Lopez’s pressure on the ball against Mitchell Robinson created a 50-50 ball, but neither Lopez nor Gary Trent Jr. were able to get to it. Once Robinson tracked it down, he threw a wild shot off the glass, but Josh Hart beat Antetokounmpo to the ball and kept it alive to turn it into a 3 for Delon Wright.
“They’ve beaten us three times,” Rivers said. “Today was the closest of the group. But all three times, the DNA of the game looked the same to me. They were way more physical. After three times, they believe that now. And so, we’re going to have to try to change that somehow, if we see them again.”
If the Bucks are going to find postseason success, they are going to have to find a way to drastically change their outcomes against the best teams in the Eastern Conference. And that would be a serious problem, considering the current standings.
The Bucks are currently the East’s sixth seed. With Friday’s loss, they are now 1.5 games back of the Detroit Pistons for the fifth seed. If the playoffs started today, the Bucks’ path to the NBA Finals could include the three best teams in the East. In the first round, the Bucks would face off against the Knicks. If they won that series, they could face the Celtics in the second round and the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Bucks do not have a single win against any of those three teams this season, but Antetokounmpo didn’t have much interest in considering the low probability of advancing in that situation on Friday night.
He acknowledged the Bucks’ record against those teams, but also reminded reporters that the Bucks have been the no. 1 seed in the East multiple times during his tenure and failed to make the NBA Finals. He reminded reporters the Miami Heat beat them as the No. 8 seed and then made the NBA Finals in 2023. And he reminded reporters that, when the Toronto Raptors beat the Bucks in the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals, the Bucks had gone 3-0 against Toronto in the regular season.
“All you gotta think about is that we have the regular season, nine games left, and then, we have two months to change our lives. That’s pretty much it,” Antetokounmpo said. “You gotta lock in two months and stay healthy and go out there and compete. That’s all you gotta think about now.
“I’m not gonna think about what happened in December when we lost from the Knicks or we lost from, I don’t know, Boston. It doesn’t really matter. When you get into the playoffs, anything can happen. You know, if you’re locked in and you play together for 48 minutes, anything can happen, and I’ve been a part of that many times.”
As Antetokounmpo laid out, it is possible for the Bucks to make a deep playoff run, but things will have to go much different than they have during the regular season for the Bucks to do so.
(Photo: Jeremy Chen / Getty Images)
