Knicks seeking consistency after bouncing back in blowout of Bucks



The Knicks followed up one of their worst performances of the season with one of their best.

Two days removed from a 25-point drubbing by the Oklahoma City Thunder that prompted boos from the Madison Square Garden crowd, the Knicks rebounded Sunday with a 140-106 rout of a Milwaukee Bucks team that sat just one spot behind them in the Eastern Conference standings.

It was a bounce-back performance that Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau believes “says a lot” about the character of his players.

“We know it’s a long season,” Thibodeau said. “The makeup of our team is outstanding. We’re not gonna be perfect. We’ll have some games where we fall short, but I know the work they put in and the commitment they made to each other, and that goes a long way over the course of a season. The idea is to play your best basketball at the end.”

The Knicks entered Sunday’s matinee at MSG as losers of four of their last five games. They shot below 30% from 3-point range in all four losses, bottoming out at just 12.9% in Friday’s 126-101 defeat by the red-hot Thunder.

The losses generated renewed attention around the lack of depth on a Knicks team that entered Sunday ranked dead last in the NBA in bench minutes, scoring and rebounding.

Amid that adversity, the Knicks’ stars stepped up.

Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 44 points on 16-of-26 shooting, scoring 23 points in the first quarter to set the tone. He could have had an even bigger game, had a third-quarter collision not left the point guard with what Thibodeau described as a shoulder “stinger.”

Brunson missed about six minutes in that third quarter before checking back in to chants of “MVP” from the home crowd.

“We’ve got to continue it,” Brunson said of the Knicks’ improved performance. “I don’t really want to have a lot of bounce-back days. I just want to be able to continue to get better every single day and continue to be consistent.”

Karl-Anthony Towns added 30 points and 18 rebounds, while Josh Hart contributed 11 points and 11 rebounds.

​​The Knicks made 18 of their 41 attempts from 3-point range (43.9%).

“It starts with Thibs, and then it trickles down to JB, KAT, OG [Anunoby], all them guys,” Hart said. “It shows the character we have. Now, we just have to continue to build off of it. We’ve got a tough team tomorrow [in the Detroit Pistons]; a young team who’s gonna run. Obviously, it’s a back-to-back for us, so we’ve got to make sure we come out with an attention to detail and intensity.”

But it wasn’t only the Knicks starters who came up big.

Cameron Payne scored 18 points off the bench, including 13 in the second quarter that helped the Knicks pull away. He shot 4-of-7 from the field in that quarter, including 3-of-6 from 3-point range.

“Cam comes in, and it was the second opportunities, him being in transition, and him getting a couple of clean looks,” Bucks guard Damian Lillard said. “You see the ball go in, and us being in that scramble situation and out of position, and then another guy gets going, it’s gonna be hard to win a game like that.”

Sunday did not fix all of the Knicks’ problems.

Their rotation remains thin following what’s been a very successful late-offseason trade for Towns, which cost them two key players in forward Julius Randle and guard Donte DiVincenzo.

Rim-protecting center Mitchell Robinson remains out, too, following ankle surgery in May.

The Knicks have the hardest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon, as their 42 upcoming opponents boast a combined winning percentage of .525. That slate includes three more games against the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers and another three against the defending champion Boston Celtics.

But the third-seeded Knicks (26-14) improved to 2-0 against the Bucks (20-17), who fell to the No. 5 spot in the East with Sunday’s loss.

The Knicks also beat Milwaukee, 116-94, at the Garden in November, and afterward, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo bemoaned his team’s lack of effort.

“We’re definitely, I believe, a better team than the first time we faced them,” Antetokounmpo said Sunday. “But at the end of the day, they came in, played way harder than us, better than us, and they were able to get a win.”



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