44 Not Enough For Brunson and Knicks
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
 
By Derrel Jazz Johnson

The New York Knicks were up by as many as 17 points in the third quarter last night against the Milwaukee Bucks and were on their way to a fifth-straight win. But Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez scored 10 points each in the fourth quarter, and the Bucks left Madison SquareGarden with a 111-107 victory.

“We thought the rebounding was going to be a huge factor in the game,”Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said after the game. “I thought that
we did a good job on ourselves on the offensive boards but they had timely ones.” Both teams finished the evening with 48 rebounds.

Jalen Brunson set a new career-high for the second time in 2023, scoring 44 points. A dejected Brunson dismissed it in a loss but his teammates talked about his superb offensive play.
“He went crazy,” said Immanuel Quickly. “His mid-range pull-up, everyone knows about it. He can get to pretty much any spot that he wants on the floor and can create for his teammates.”

“J was great,” Julius Randle said of his teammate. “Especially down the stretch – being aggressive, getting into the paint, threes, whatever it was – he was great.”