Milwaukee Bucks: 3 matchups to watch for versus New York Knicks

Second matchup to watch for between Milwaukee Bucks vs. Knicks — Defending R.J. Barrett

The Knicks will enter Thursday night with their backcourt dinged up, especially as they’ll be without veteran guard Derrick Rose for the fourth straight game as he remains in the league’s health and safety protocols.

With Elfrid Payton likely to take Rose’s place in the starting lineup, the Bucks will have to be sure not to let Payton go off for 27 points on 12-for-16 shooting (3-for-3 from downtown) as they did in their previous meeting. But it’s second-year Knicks guard R.J Barrett that may be of interest to the Bucks, especially as Milwaukee looks to slow down New York’s offensive engine.

Barrett has steadily improved as a sophomore where he’s averaging 16.5 points on .443/.350/.730 shooting, along with 6 rebounds and 2.9 assists. And while Randle often stands as the Knicks’ offensive fulcrum, it’s Barrett who is averaging a team-leading 12.3 drives per game this season, per NBA.com/stats.

With Barrett taking his turns of pitching in the Knicks’ offensive attack, it will certainly be interesting where Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer turns to in terms of guarding the Duke product straight away.

The obvious answer would be Bucks guard Jrue Holiday, who can handle any and all defensive assignments as we’ve seen over his growing Bucks tenure. The question for Holiday is where is his fitness level at coming out of the break as he has coming off playing 22-and-a-half minutes in the Bucks’ win over the Memphis Grizzlies.

If the Bucks continue to play it safe with Holiday and continue bringing him off the bench following his bout with COVID-19, it will surely be interesting who takes the initial assignments from the Bucks’ rejiggered starting lineup.