Kasparas Jakučionis tried. He really tried to follow Jalen Brunson around a screen. But then something blasted him almost all the way back to his beautiful Lithuanian hometown of Vilnius some 4,300 miles away. Okay, he might have only gotten pushed out to center court by a Karl-Anthony Towns pick but considering the play happened right at the three point line it was still something.
Apparently though, it was not enough for the young Milwaukee Bucks guard. A couple of minutes later he still decided
to straighten himself in front of the natural force of a Tyler Kolek drive. It ended just as well for him as the screen navigation had a few moments earlier. Flying underneath the basket the 20-year-old former Fightin’ Illini was afraid he might land on top of James Dolan while Kolek swiftly finished with an easy lay in at the rim.
Just like the youngest heir of the great Šarūnas Marčiulionis, the Milwaukee Bucks tried last night at Madison Square Garden. They tried hard, time and again. When the New York Knicks pushed them into a hole in the second quarter with good, rock solid team basketball Tayler Jenkins’ young men didn’t think of their postgame pizza at John’s, but outrageously climbed out of said hole to start the third quarter. Because it was so much fun to play with their food, the Knicks squashed their uprising, only to see those little fawns stick their heads out once more a few minutes later. Milwaukee even cut the New York lead to 11 in the beginning of the final frame. But at some point the overmatched Bucks just couldn’t respond anymore. And everything went like it was supposed to.
On the surface, and judging by the final score, one could share Allzingers’ impression that he posted in Russell’s Postgame Thread: “Looked like it was a layup line all night.” At times the Knicks really did whatever they wanted with their counterparts and enjoyed unbothered trots down a layup line. But make no mistake: The Bucks played them hard and they tried. The only problem, you ask? Well, the Bucks are just really bad. Like “Superbad” without McLovin. Yet most of them are still professional basketball players (although the verdict on Kyle Kuzma is still pending), so the final result might mean a little more about the current state of the Knicks than one would imagine.
Of course beating up on beaten down opponents won’t make or break a season, but it can surely keep things entertaining through the dog days of late November. It can build confidence in a team. I bet OG Anunoby enjoyed those solid looks from three point land, as the great Mike Breen reminded us about 17 times during the broadcast. Furthermore, the Knicks bench players can all use the extended burn to forge their iron.
Shoutout here goes to Andre Drummond who seems like the perfect backup center for these kind of games. He is so huge that it’s no fun to play against him and he seemingly absorbs rebounds by just being there. Yet his two All Star nods from the middle ages and the fact that he has never really won big in his career make him proud enough to show up against the bottomfeeders of the league. And we can even enjoy his, at times, comical offensive game as a nice icing on a cake—provided the game isn’t close.
Unlike Drummond many of the Bockers inherently know what it takes to win, and that group of tough, hard nosed veterans seems to have also taken in young Tyler Kolek as one of their own. The cocky confidence was always there and still is—take that, Swifties! But now it seems like the game is catching up to the bravado. Last night TK even shook off a bad start like it was nothing and then meticulously carved up the Bucks defense in his 15 minutes. He set up others, got the ball flying around, and scored with aggression to finish with a whopping +23 for the game.
Sure, we need to see it against better teams, no question about it. But you can only beat the foes you have in front of you on any given night. A large part of being a contender is taking care of business in games where you face glorified Big Ten teams who are either dreaming of Cancun already or in fear of being demoted to the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional. (That’s the first Mexican basketball league, in case you’re wondering.) You won’t see these Knicks play there anytime soon; they are good enough for the NBA, and then some. After a stumble out of the gate, they seem to be kicking into gear these days, which is a beautiful sight. And a mandatory one, as well. There’s plenty of things to do, plenty of stuff to accomplish on the road to repeat.
And a trip to Vilnius can come in the offseason.
