Bucks Comfortably Beat Helpless Knicks in London

Milwaukee Bucks eased to a 95-79 win over the New York Knicks in the annual NBA Global Games in London at the O2 Arena.

OJ Mayo hit some big shots and finished with 22 points for the Bucks, and Brandon Knight caused a nuisance with six steals and six assists accompanying his 20 points. Carmelo Anthony scoring 25 as he made his return to action from a knee injury as the Knicks fell to a 16th straight defeat.

A fast start set the tone for Milwaukee and they were rarely troubled as Head Coach Jason Kidd returned to London for a third straight win in the capital after leading Brooklyn to victory 12 months ago, and playing for New York in 2013.

“Being able to focus on what we do with our strengths; sharing the ball and making plays for each other,” said Kidd post-game. “We had our hands full with Melo and Amar’e playing so to get a win against these guys was a good game for us.”

‘Melo’ was the one the fans wanted to see and it was no surprise he was given the biggest reception when both starting line-ups were announced.

The Bucks were the designated ‘home team’ but the London crowd were fully behind the Knicks with several Melo jerseys on display. The support turned sympathetic as the Knicks struggled early on, and the atmosphere soon turned as flat as the performance on court.

In a pre-game introduction on court, Anthony said he hoped the players would put on an exhibition for the fans.

They did. Well, the Bucks did.

New York were too slow out of the blocks, and Milwaukee attacked; scoring the first 14 points of the game to take a commanding lead with the ‘Greek Freak’ Giannis Antetokounbo making things happen from the onset. By the end of the first, the Knicks already trailed 31-13 having made just 26.3% of their attempts from the field.

It didn’t get any easier in the second, and miss after miss was met by gasps from the crowd with Derek Fisher’s side unable to buy a bucket. Anthony overcame his early rust to put up 13 second quarter points, although the deficit furthered with Milwaukee in total control, up 56-37 at the half.

The style was turned on with back-to-back alley-oop dunks midway through the third with the contest already seemingly a forgone conclusion. Knicks’ Head Coach Fisher cut a forlorn figure on the sidelines, unable to hide his disbelief at how poor his side were at times.

With the gap increased to 26 (82-56) by the end of the third, Anthony would play no further part in the game with a solid 27 minutes of court-time under his belt.

It took until a mini-revival in the fourth for the crowd to really come alive, sensing an improbable comeback as the Knicks closed to within 12 with five minutes remaining. However, that was as close as they would come again with Mayo burying yet another 3-pointer to allow the Bucks to see out the win with ease.

Notes:

• The number of Knicks fans sporting Melo jerseys heavily outnumbered those supporting Milwaukee a couple of hours before tip.
• Upon tip-off, the top tier looked largely full whereas lower tiers had a more obvious number of empty seats.
• A number of football players past and present were in attendance, as was boxer Anthony Joshua.
• Some NBA legends were presented on the court, including Britain’s John Amaechi, and the biggest ovation of the night went to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
• Pre-game, Adam Silver said the NBA being on free-to-air TV is ‘something we’d love to see’.. but ‘I don’t think we’ve demonstrated..the kind of viewership to sustain broad free-to-air coverage’.