Knicks’ Brunson has 38 in ‘special’ win over Bucks

NEW YORK — The New York Knicks lost their first three games against the Milwaukee Bucks this season, but on Christmas Day, Jalen Brunson played like a man determined to prevent that streak from extending to four.

Brunson finished with 38 points, the most by a Knicks player on Christmas Day since Bernard King’s record 60-point performance in 1984, to lead New York to a 129-122 victory over Milwaukee. The Knicks’ victory snapped the Bucks’ seven-game winning streak.

“We’ve struggled against this team throughout this year and the fact that we came out with a win today, it’s special,” Brunson said after the game. “I like the way we had a lead no matter how much they cut the lead down. We stayed poised and figured out a way to keep it and win.”

After losing to the Bucks on Saturday afternoon, the Knicks came out aggressively in the first quarter Monday. They scored 36 points in the period, their highest first-quarter total of the season, and never trailed after that.

Four Knicks — Brunson, Julius Randle (24), RJ Barrett (21) and Immanuel Quickley (20) — scored at least 20 points, becoming the second team in the past 50 years to do so on Christmas Day, joining the 2012 Rockets, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

“We had a lot of guys in double figures and a lot of assists,” Quickley said. “It was fun to play like that when everybody is moving and touching [the ball]. I think our defense really bled into our offense, so that has got to be the way every night.”

New York picked up a victory despite Milwaukee getting a combined 88 points from its Big 3 of Giannis Antetokounmpo (32), Damian Lillard (32) and Khris Middleton (24).

“They came out and played like they had practiced and talked about it,” Lillard said. “They played faster, played with a lot of energy and I thought they had a more collective effort, too. They had a lot of guys contribute to the win. We could’ve done a lot of things better and gave ourselves a little bit of a chance in the end, but it was just too late.”

Although the Bucks cut the Knicks’ lead to as little as four points in the fourth quarter, Brunson’s performance was too much to overcome. He scored or assisted on 51 points and created 18 points off his drives, and his teammates shot 6-of-11 on his passes, according to ESPN Stats & Info. He made 15 field goals, 11 of which were contested.

Brunson has had a lot of success against Milwaukee this season despite New York’s 1-3 record in those four games, averaging 35.8 points.

“A lot of times in our coverages, [Brunson has] been able to get to his spots, but we’ve been able to overall control the game regardless,” Lillard said. “But sometimes when a guy gets rolling and they get comfortable and they start feeling good, when it becomes a tight game, it can be a problem.”

Still, the Bucks were happy escaping New York with a split over the weekend.

“It was kind of like a playoff matchup,” Antetokounmpo said. “We’ve played this team four times in the past month, month and a half. Two times in the past few days.

“It’s a good test for us. We’re going to play teams in the playoffs twice [on the road], so being able to win the first one, lose the second one, it’s good. We’ll learn from it.”