Grading Every Knick After Their 117-85 Win over the Milwaukee Bucks

The New York Knicks won a 117-85 blowout over the Milwaukee Bucks Tuesday. You’d think a team that won by 32 would be loaded with players on their A-game, and yes, several Knicks did earn perfect marks. Let’s learn who, and why.

Jalen Brunson: A

Nothing about Brunson’s numbers indicate him having done anything special. That’s why, with all the data available to us, you still have to watch the games to hear what they say.

Brunson led the Knicks in makes and attempts, yet spent most of the night floating like a butterfly rather than stinging like a bee. Generally content to float around the game's periphery, he saved his venom for the third quarter, after the Bucks halved what had been a 26-point lead. Whenever the visitors started on a little run, Brunson stopped it cold.

The other night in Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell was a one-man tsunami, pouring in points late in a doomed but spectacular sight. Against the Bucks, Brunson was more like the tides. Quiet. Relentless. Inevitable.

Mikal Bridges: B+

Another player whose numbers don’t seem to match the grade, especially with Bridges done for the night four minutes into the second half.

But he played with energy on both ends. Bridges hit the offensive glass. He stopped Milwaukee fast breaks in their tracks with steals and triggered New York to get out in transition. Numerous drives into the paint resulted in kickouts to his teammates for open 3s. He passed up an open 3 to dribble into the lane and hit a floater. Bridges blocked the 6-foot-10 Nate Ament at the rim. All in the first quarter.

He didn’t play much after the break, but even in that smaller sample continued to be a playmaker, finishing with five rebounds and three thefts in only 17 minutes. Bridges should be fairly fresh for Wednesday’s second end of the back-to-back. Hopefully he can pick up where he left off.

Landry Shamet: B+

Feelings are not facts, let us acknowledge. But doesn’t it feel like every great team in recent memory featured a fearless marksmen from deep who doubled as a useful defender?

In the tradition of Otto Porter Jr., Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Payton Pritchard and Oklahoma City’s Cerberus, i.e. Lu Dort, Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso, comes the latest in that line, one Landry Michael Shamet. Watching him splash one hair-trigger 3 after another almost made you forget he’s keeping the starting spot warm until Josh Hart returns to action.

OG Anunoby: B+

Anunoby’s struggled with his 3-point shot most of the early season, but there were no issues in this one. Not only did he drill five longballs, he was taking and making them from everywhere, not just his comfort zone in the corners. Anunoby also had a game-high eight points off turnovers.

OG Anunoby's shot chart against the Milwaukee Bucks — nba.com

Karl-Anthony Towns: A

In the 2012 offseason, the Knicks were so certain free agent Jeremy Lin couldn’t get a better offer elsewhere they dared him to go find one. He did, signing with Houston. After Towns was New York’s playoffs MVP in helping them to a championship, the Knicks responded by offering him a pay cut.

Low-balling KAT feels similar to thinking Lin had no other options, risking not only regression on the court if worst comes to worst but the wrath of fans who've just lost a favorite. And wild as Linsanity was, Towns has considerably more capital in the bank with Knicks fans given what he's given them in only two-plus seasons. KAT’s been awesome for more than a decade. This game was more of the same.

His double-double has him one away from tying Willis Reed’s franchise record for the most to start a season. More impressive is Towns’ recent run of defensive Zen, the state he occupied throughout the 2026 playoffs. He’s stayed out of foul trouble for a good stretch now, and as a result is making more of an impact – like last postseason, on both ends.

Rebounds are the punctuation marks that end a defensive possession. KAT's dominance on the glass is the kind of play that earns exclamation points. Sequences like one early in the game when he followed a deflection with consecutive blocks on Jaime Jaquez Jr. were good news for New York’s title chances but bad news for their negotiation position: Towns is playing the center spot at a level no Knick has since Patrick Ewing in the 1990s. And when he's playing like he has since April, he's the best two-way Knick since then, too.

Miles McBride: B

A grilled cheese game for Deuce: simple, comforting, nothing overly-ambitious, just concentrated goodness. Eight points, no rebounds and a +39 rating. You don’t have to reinvent that wheel. Just roll with it.

Andre Drummond: A

Drummond is a big, striking physical being. So it’s only appropriate he’s putting up some big, striking numbers.

Coming into this season, Drummond’s led the league in rebounds per 36 minutes eight times. Coming into the Milwaukee game, he’s leading again, now averaging a career-high 21 per 36. After 14 boards in just 16 minutes Tuesday, those numbers will continue to climb.

The Bucks are a bad team, they’re supposed to be a bad team, there are limits to what to make of good play against a bad team. But bad as they are, the Knicks can only feel good that their centers, Towns and Drummond, outscored the Bucks’ bigs (Myles Turner and Kel’el Ware) 23-11 while destroying them on the glass 30-7.

How middling were the Buck men in the middle? Their seven rebounds came in 44 minutes. Bridges alone had five -- in 17.

Tyler Kolek: A

12 points and four assists in 15 minutes seems reason enough for a good grade. In Kolek’s case, the numbers are a symptom, not the cause.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play with the confidence and especially the physicality he did in this one. In the first quarter he drew a charge on the 7-foot Ware. Kolek blocked A.J. Green’s 3-point try from behind and took it the other way for the easy 2. He passed on a 3 for a strong baseline drive. In the fourth, there was Kolek boxing out Ament, then on the other end getting into the lane with such force he knocked Kasparas Jakucionis backwards before scoring over him.

It’s a long season, but at the moment the backup point guard spot seems like Kolek’s to lose.

Mo Diawara: B-

If McBride had a grilled cheese game, Diawara was peanut butter and jelly. Except the peanut butter was crunchy when you prefer creamy, or vice versa. Or the jelly was grape instead of strawberry. Diawara wasn’t bad, the same way PB&J isn’t bad. He just didn’t stand out in any way.

Jordan Clarkson: B+

In some ways, more of the same from Clarkson, which is to say more positive play. Three offensive rebounds in just 11 minutes, a drive-and-kick to find Kolek for a first-half 3, then in the third a lefty running hook off glass. He grows more valuable the longer he’s here.

Pacome Dadiet: A

As with Kolek, Dadiet’s grade is as much for his attitude as his aptitude. In the fourth quarter, a smart cut after Clarkson picked up his dribble ended with a strong off-hand finish through contact in the paint and a 3-point play. On the next Knick possession, Dadiet grabbed the offensive rebound. Soon after, his catch-and-release was smooth as silk dropping in a 3.

But it was more than the production. Dadiet didn’t look like a player trying to show himself, his team or anyone else that he belongs. He played like he knows. It may only be garbage time against one of the league’s worst teams, but every climb starts somewhere.

James Wiseman/Dalton Knecht/Jose Alvarado: INCOMPLETE

These three weren’t active or involved enough to earn a grade. Knecht made a corner 3 created by Diawara. Wiseman broke up an attempted alley-oop and had a blocked shot nullified by a Milwaukee offensive foul. For Alvarado, this game makes two straight DNP-CDs; he’s played half as many minutes this season as Kolek. You get the sense Mike Brown is rotating and experimenting right now, and that Alvarado’s time will come again, probably sooner than later.

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