The New York Knicks (3-4) are trending in the wrong direction in the win column, but are heading in the right direction from an accountability standpoint as they get ready for their next matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night.
Mikal Bridges & Karl-Anthony Towns plead for Knicks to start games off better
The Knicks have dropped two straight games against beatable teams in the Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks. Now that they’re below .500 for the second time this year, a pair of their most important starters sounded off on what’s been plaguing them early on in the year, per Antonio Losada of Posting and Toasting:
“I think we’re still figuring it out. Offensively, defensively, we still got to figure it out,” Bridges remarked before specifying what could help New York moving forward. “We just got to come out, set the tone early. From the starters, all of us got to be better.”
Towns was very critical of his Knicks after their most recent loss to the Hawks on Wednesday, saying this:
“[Wednesday night], including myself, we came out sluggish and we can’t allow that to happen. We can’t allow that to happen. We’ve got to impose our will,” Towns asserted.
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Knicks’ first-quarter scoring has been nightmarish to start the season
The Knicks are scoring the fifth-fewest first-quarter points among all teams at 25.7 PPG. They’re averaging that scoring mark on 21.3 first-quarter field goal attempts per contest. Only four teams are taking fewer shots in the opening 12 minutes of games than New York.
Milwaukee happens to be one of those four teams. The Bucks take 21.1 FGA in those situations. Therefore, if the Jalen Brunson-led franchise shows themselves to be any slower than they’ve been so far, the Knicks might shoot themselves in the foot in the worst way possible against the Bucks. Back-to-back losses have not sat well with Towns, Bridges, or the team as a whole. That’s a good thing though, as it shows the level of care and passion that their vanguards have for winning.
It will be on them to punch the Bucks in the mouth from the opening tip to create a cushion that won’t fade on the scoreboard. If they do so, the Knicks stand a great chance of downing the struggling Bucks (2-6) and improving to 4-4 on the campaign.
