Friday’s victory over the New York Knicks was an important win for the Milwaukee Bucks. They put their blowout against the Toronto Raptors behind them as they’ve now returned to winning ways.
It was also a crucial game for Khris Middleton who is currently still working his way back to full strength after having to undergo surgery on his left knee this offseason.
Khris Middleton Closes Out Knicks Game for Milwaukee Bucks
Middleton played a season-high 21 minutes on Friday against the Knicks. This was a slight bump from the 17 minutes he played during Milwaukee’s past two games.
More importantly, though, Middleton played in the fourth quarter for the first time this season. Not only that, but he also ended up closing the game for Milwaukee in what turned out to be quite a nail-biter.
The three-time All-Star finished with a season-high 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting, two triples, nine rebounds, and four assists, without committing a single turnover.
Middleton spoke to reporters after the game, and the 32-year-old veteran expressed his delight in being able to finally play in crunch time:
“It definitely felt great to be back out there for closing a game,” Middleton said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Now we just gotta all get on the same page. Defensively I thought we were pretty good. They hit some tough shots. But offensively we have to figure out what we want to get to at the end of the game and figure out a way to execute it just a little bit better. We did enough to win.”
As Middleton implied, it was far from a perfect performance for the Bucks. They did manage to secure a hard-fought win against Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, but there is still a lot of room for improvement for this new-look Milwaukee side.
Their next test will come in the form of a road game against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday, and the Bucks will obviously want to build on Friday’s win against New York.
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