A GHOST OF XMAS PAST Knicks look to exorcise demons against Greek Freak & Bucks
The Knicks have ghosts of the past to confront on Christmas.
The ghosts of the Bucks, for starters. They’ve beaten the Knicks nine straight times — and a ridiculous 28 out of the past 35 matchups — including a shellacking on Christmas 2018.
Related but separate is the ghost of Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose emergence as a superstar correlated with Milwaukee’s dominance over New York. He has dropped 30 points or more on the Knicks 10 times. The Knicks’ greatest triumph over the Greek Freak was a dunk in 2018 by Mario Hezonja, who jammed it on top of Antetokounmpo at MSG and insultingly stepped over his floored opponent. Hezonja is long gone from the NBA. Another Knicks ghost. Antetokounmpo is again an MVP candidate.
Then there are the Knicks’ disadvantages in this matchup, beyond the obvious talent gap. Without the injured Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks are small and were punished Saturday on the boards by the Bucks, who boast one of the NBA’s larger frontcourts with Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis.
Josh Hart said they can exorcise these ghosts by running past them. The last thing the Knicks want is to face Milwaukee’s set halfcourt defense with 7-footers towering in the paint. Their hope for the Christmas matinee matchup, as outlined by multiple players after Milwaukee pounded the Knicks on Saturday, is to keep the Bucks on their heels in transition.
“I love Brook but he’s not the most athletic guy or quick guy so we should be able to beat him down the court and get easy buckets in transition,” Hart said. “It’s two sides of it, obviously. It’s tough defensively to rebound and stuff like that, but it should give us an advantage in playing faster and playing together and for each other.”
On defense, the ghost is obvious and relentless. The Knicks can’t stop the Bucks from nailing an inordinate amount of treys at a high rate. It was the main reason Milwaukee averaged 128.6 points in their three victories over the Knicks this season, as Damian Lillard and Malik Beasley feasted.
Unfortunately for the Knicks, there’s no easy fix. They can try to close out faster on shooters, but they’re also defending against Milwaukee’s potent threats in the paint.
Their best chance is Milwaukee missing shots.
“Giannis demands a lot of attention. Just forces us to collapse,” Jalen Brunson said. “They made a lot of tough shots. We contested a lot in the first half. They made some tough ones. We’ve got to do a better job of running them off the 3-point line.”
The Knicks are catching the Bucks at a bad time for their holiday matinee (Milwaukee owns a seven-game winning streak), but apparently there’s never a good time for them against one of the East’s best.
It’s the underlying theme of Monday’s matchup. Despite their mostly encouraging opening two months of the season, the Knicks are saddled with “pretender” status because of their miserable record versus the elite this season, their 0-6 mark against Milwaukee and Boston.
It has reinforced the idea the Knicks need to trade for a star, feeding into the narrative that neither Brunson nor Julius Randle are good enough.
Or, in the case of Brunson, not tall enough.
“He’s been doubted plenty of times,” Hart said of Brunson. “First it was that his style wouldn’t translate to the NBA. he’s a second-round pick. Plays well [with the Dallas Mavericks]. Then he gets here. He’s undersized, overrated, too big of a contract. Played well. All-Star caliber. All-NBA style. People are going to say stupid s--- all they want, but at the end of the day, the beauty of him is he doesn’t care about what people say. He cares about winning and he cares about success.”
“Winning and success” will have to go through the Bucks — and some ghosts — on Christmas.