Following their defeats to the Washington Wizards, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Toronto Raptors, the Milwaukee Bucks recently fell once again, this time to a severely weakened New York Knicks side. After suffering a fairly one-sided 109-122 loss, Damian Lillard took to the postgame conference to laud Jalen Brunson for his performance. Further, Lillard also shed light on his stint with the Portland Trail Blazers while talking about how Brunson put the team on his back on the offensive end of the floor.
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Damian Lillard began his comments by showering Jalen Brunson with some lofty praise, referring to the latter as one of the best players in the league. Further, Dame also touched on the fact that Brunson was being overworked and had to just about carry the entire offensive load of the team. Shedding light on his own experiences with the Trail Blazers, Lillard seemed to relate to the situation that the 6ft 2” guard is currently in, as seen in the X[Formerly Twitter] post by New York Basketball.
“First of all, he’s one of the best players in the league. He’s a scorer. As somebody who’s been in a situation where I had the ball in my hands 95% of the time, 90% of the time, certain matchups that I can just think of that I’ve had over the years where I knew the type of coverage they were gonna be in.
He’s getting those screen set, he’s coming downhill, he plays in the mid-range with floaters and pull-up jumpers and stuff like that,” said Lillard.
The comparisons that Lillard drew are pretty accurate. With Julius Randle being sidelined with injuries, Jalen Brunson has had to do a huge amount of the heavy lifting for the New York Knicks. While Donte DiVincenzo has developed into a legit #2 option for the Knicks, Brunson is still attempting almost 20% (21.2 out of 88.6) of the New York side’s total field goals while playing 35.3 minutes per game (top 15 in the league), per Sporting News.
Damian Lillard was in the exact same situation for the majority of his stint with the Oregon side in question. While CJ McCollum did turn into a reliable #2 option, Lillard did have the rock in his hands for the majority of games. Playing without a second offensive superstar, the Blazers were heavily reliant on Lillard’s brilliance for the large part of the 11 seasons that he played for them.
Tonight, Brunson was inarguably the best player on the court. According to NBA.com, playing for nearly 40 minutes, the All-Star lodged 43 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists while turning the ball over just once during the contest. However, while the 27-year-old had a game-winning performance, his competitor Damian Lillard failed to live up to the Milwaukee Bucks’ expectations.
Playing almost the same amount of minutes as Brunson, Lillard scored 23 points on an inefficient 36.4% shooting from the field and a subpar 14.3% display from beyond the three-point line.
Suffering their sixth loss in the past seven games, the Milwaukee Bucks now have a 47-31 record. While they are still placed 2nd in the Eastern Conference standings, due to their latest dip in production, Doc Rivers’ boys are now 2.5 games away from tumbling all the way down to the 6th position.
Playing against the Orlando Magic, the Boston Celtics, and the Oklahoma City Thunder as the matchups of their final four games of the season, per ESPN, retaining the 2nd spot seems to be difficult considering the form that they’ve been in.
