NEW YORK _ Jeff Hornacek smiled his "aw, shucks" smile before the game Wednesday and said sometimes, coaches can be too hard on players. Sometimes, they expect perfection when that isn't possible. And sometimes, like he did on Monday, they get frustrated. They say their team may not be capable of playing defense. They get caught by television cameras looking like they're walking away in a huff when their star player calls an ill-advised iso play.
But sometimes, frustration is called for, and necessary. Sometimes, there are eight seconds on the clock and the ball is in Giannis Antetokounmpo's hands and not making that defensive stop means a sixth straight loss and no solace in sight.
After leading by as many as 16 in the third quarter, the Knicks fell apart in the fourth, losing 105-104 on Antetokounmpo's buzzer-beating, straightaway jumper over Lance Thomas.
Antetokounmpo scored 12 of his 27 points in the fourth as the Bucks outscored the Knicks 32-17. Derrick Rose's turnover on an inbounds pass with eight seconds left _ Antetokounmpo slapped the ball off Rose's leg _ led to the final possession. Rose had 15 points and his layup with eight minutes left stalled the Bucks' 16-2 fourth-quarter run. Carmelo Anthony's shot clock-beating 3 put them up by five before Antetokounmpo's coast-to-coast dunk took the air out of the crowd.
Anthony scored 30 points, with seven assists and 11 rebounds, as the Knicks squandered a spirited performance from Mindaugas Kuzminskas, who propelled them in the first half, as well as some better-than-usual defense for the first three quarters.
Kuzminskas scored 11 of his 15 in the first half, and gave the Knicks a two-point lead with 7:19 left in the second quarter _ he cut in for a booming dunk after Brandon Jennings gathered the rebound of Kuzminskas' missed 3. By the time he hit back-to-back buckets in transition with a minute left in the third period, the chants of "Kuuuuuz" were unmistakable.
Rose sunk a contested layup with 26 seconds left in the first half to tie it at 52, and then hustled back to deny Malcolm Brogdon's layup to end the half.
For three quarters, it was one of the Knicks' best efforts in recent memory. They had allowed an average of 113.8 points in the previous five games and ranked sixth-worst overall going into Wednesday. And while Hornacek eventually walked back from his comments after their embarrassing 115-103 loss to the Magic Monday _ he said that "maybe (the Knicks are) just not capable" of playing great defense _ defense and effort were huge subjects of discussion between games.
"Basically what we told the guys is that you don't just get out of a losing streak by showing up and playing," Hornacek said before the game. "You've got to put some hard work in there and maybe tougher practice, knowing we have a game tomorrow. I think they got a lot out of it."
And there was improvement, though that's not likely to give them any comfort. Keyed by Joakim Noah (16 rebounds) and Rose, they moved the ball better; Anthony, who came into the game shooting 9-for-28, started 1-for-4 but found his groove, drawing a slew of fouls in the second quarter. And Kuzminskas was a Lithuanian lightning rod in the first half, sparking a bench that scored 23 of its 33 points in the half.
