NEW YORK (AP) — The Bucks hadn’t just been beating them, they were beating them easily.
So in front of a sold-out home crowd and a national TV audience, the New York Knicks used the Christmas stage to make their stand against Milwaukee.
Jalen Brunson scored 38 points and the Knicks snapped Milwaukee’s seven-game winning streak, ending their lengthy skid against the Bucks with a 129-122 victory Monday.
The Knicks had dropped nine straight meetings, including a 130-111 loss on Saturday in the opener of this two-game series. The Bucks had routed New York twice while rolling through their December schedule, but they haven’t solved Brunson all season, and the point guard got plenty of help from his teammates this time.
“They’re a good team. We feel like we’re a good team as well, so just kind of taking that challenge, accepting that challenge that we hadn’t got them yet,” guard Immanuel Quickley said. “It had been a while, so this was a good one to get.”
Julius Randle added 24 points and nine rebounds, RJ Barrett bounced back from a poor game Saturday with 21 points and Quickley came off the bench for 20.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard each scored 32 points for the Bucks, who fell to 9-2 this month. Khris Middleton added 24.
The Bucks rang up 146 points against the Knicks in the quarterfinals of the In-Season Tournament on Dec. 5 and didn’t cool off much Saturday. But they seemed short on energy Monday in the middle of an extended Christmas stay in New York, with still another game remaining in the city when they visit Brooklyn on Wednesday.
“We knew coming in everything that we were lined up for and it is what it is,” Lillard said. “We got the first one, we came in for this one, they got off to a good start, they played a great game and we just got outplayed.”