The Milwaukee Bucks battled it out with the New York Knicks on Friday night. Milwaukee emerged with a 110-105 win, but it goes without saying that the entire team had to work extremely hard to secure a victory against one of their Eastern Conference rivals.
It was a close game for pretty much the entirety of the contest, and the Bucks had to show their mettle toward the end to hold off the Knicks.
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Speaks on Team’s Closing Unit Vs. Knicks
Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin opted to go with Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Brook Lopez as the cornerstones of his closing unit against New York. Khris Middleton was finally able to close out a game for the Bucks for the first time this season.
Summer recruit Malik Beasley got the nod to start against the Knicks, but it was veteran swingman Jae Crowder who closed out the game along with the rest of the starting unit.
On Sunday, Coach Griff talked up Crowder’s key role in the rotation:
“I think just on both sides of the ball you have a lot of veteran experience,” Griffin said. “With Jae (Crowder) out there, his size, his three-point shooting capabilities, also just (a) high-IQ player. I think you went with smart guys — smart and tough guys. And that’s as tough as it gets with those five guys in the lineup at the end of the game.”
I see no lies here. Crowder is no star, but you can’t take away what this man brings to the table for the Bucks in terms of his grit and toughness.
There was a significant disparity in the rebounding department on Friday night as the Knicks secured 56 boards as opposed to Milwaukee’s 41. In their defense, though, the Bucks did put in a much better effort on the glass in the second half — a factor that Griffin believes determined the win for his team:
“That was the game right there, and I thought we made a conscious effort on the glass. I thought everyone contributed in that second half,” he said.
“I do like that lineup. It gives us a lot of versatility defensively. We can guard multiple positions.”
The good news for the Bucks is they have a clean bill of health yet again for Monday’s clash against the Brooklyn Nets, which will afford Griffin more opportunities to test out multiple lineup combinations and make the necessary tweaks in his rotation.
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