Milwaukee Bucks: 3 things to watch in rematch with New York Knicks

Can the Milwaukee Bucks avoid another surge from the New York Knicks?

Everything was looking great for the Bucks after the first quarter in their first meeting with the Knicks. They led by nearly 20 points and Giannis had only score five of those 38 first quarter points!

What followed could be described as a collapse but that would not be doing the Knicks justice for how well they played following that opening quarter. They were led by their three primary offensive players in Julius Randle (a game-high 32 points), R.J. Barrett (20 points), and long-time Bucks nemesis Derrick Rose (23 points). Those were the only Knicks to score in double figures.

Hey, maybe those three don’t play as well, but they also only got a combined 12 points from their starting backcourt of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier. Although the Bucks didn’t have Holiday for his full complement of minutes in that game, we’ll see how much they let him go tonight after playing over 31 minutes last night.

It’s a tough position for the Bucks against players like Barrett as they’re a bit thin on their wing depth for players that can match up with him. Middleton would be the easy answer if he were available, but instead they’ll be forced to matchup Grayson Allen or Pat Connaughton against him.

As for Randle, we’ll see if they start Portis like they did last night to match up better with the size of the Knicks’ frontcourt duo of Randle and Mitchell Robinson. They posted a 40 percent offensive rebounding rate against the Bucks last game and that simply can’t happen again if the Bucks want to pick up a win at Madison Square Garden.

It won’t be an easy task to pick up a win tonight for the Bucks, but they’ll have a ton of confidence after a bounce back, clutch win against the Sixers (even though they played severely undermanned).