Game 5 is over, and the Knicks have taken a 3-2 series lead after almost letting it slip away! The series had been going back and forth, but the Knicks finally won two in a row. After last game, I predicted that the winner of the bench battle would win the game, and I was dead wrong.
In this game, the Bucks bench dominated, with Louis Williams returning to form, Skal doing well, and getting some good contributions from Thad too. They outscored the Knicks 40-27 off the bench, but the Knicks starting lineup was so dominant it didn’t matter. It was a fairly close game for most of it, with the Knicks taking an 8-point lead with about 4 minutes left. It looked bad for the Bucks, but they pulled it together and went on a 10-0 run to put then up 2 with 1:47 left in the game. From here, it was all Harden as he sank a wide-open jumper, and hit a couple of free throws. Westbrook had a great look at the end of the game to tie it, then KAT got a great offensive rebound, but sadly stepped out of bounds. Lance made things exciting by turning it over with 1 second left, but Giannis couldn’t hit the heave.
With a game this close, it’s hard to say that the better team won. Even looking at the offensive and defensive efficiencies, Milwaukee was expected to win with the slightly better efficiency. The thing that probably lost them the game is that they shot 77% from the free throw stripe while the Knicks shot 95%. Nobody was bricking em really, just a few misses adding up. This is going to be a hard one for the Bucks to swallow though, as they easily could have won this game.
Going into next game, we will see what other adjustments are made. Aaron Gordon shot a lot of shots and wasn’t super-efficient. I’m not sure what other strings can be pulled though. For now, Lance looks like he can play in the starting lineup, but whoever plays that SF spot for the Knicks hasn’t done great. I did like seeing Louis Williams in the lineup towards the end of the game, he has a lot more offensive ability than Caldwell-Pope.
Good Luck to both GMs and hopefully this will go 7 for all of us fans!
