Back in the playoffs for the second straight year for the first time since 2003 and 2004 Jamie Collins Jersey , the Milwaukee Bucks can hardly afford a second straight slip-up when they face the New York Knicks on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Two days after allowing the Brooklyn Nets to claw back from a fourth-quarter deficit, the Bucks head over the Brooklyn Bridge to square off with a Knicks squad that rebounded from a 73-point performance with a 122-98 win over Miami on Friday night. Before the game, the Knicks were the coldest team in the Eastern Conference, losers of four straight.

And speaking of cold: The Bucks had better heat up in a hurry after shooting 25 percent from 3-point range against the Nets in the 119-111 loss.

“We couldn’t shoot it in the ocean,” Bucks forward Jabari Parker said. “They did a really good job, though, you got to put your hands up to them.”

The Bucks hardly did that on defense against the woeful Nets, allowing Brooklyn to shoot 48 percent from 3-point range in the loss.

With the Bucks having an outside chance at the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, now is no time for Milwaukee to get lazy on defense.

“This would not be good enough to win a game in the playoffs,” Bucks coach Joe Prunty said. “I’m not worried about the playoffs right now. … We need to play very good basketball regardless of our opponent and tonight is an example of (not playing well enough).”

In the Knicks, the Bucks find a team with any postseason hopes long in the rear-view mirror. The Knicks are out of the playoffs for the fifth straight year and [url=[http://www.cowboyscheapshop.com/cheap-au...rederick-jersey]Travis Frederick Jersey[/url] , if anything, the team appears to be playing for better lottery odds.

Too bad they dealt themselves too good a hand on Friday.

A 24-point win over the Heat put the Knicks a game behind the Chicago Bulls for the eighth-worst record in the NBA, and every lottery ping-pong ball matters.

“If you ask any of the players or coaches, that’s not (a thought),” Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek told reporters early this week. “We’ve said it all along that that’s not what we’re trying to do. With the guys out there, we’re trying to win the game, and that’s what we want from them.”

The two teams will meet for the fourth time in nine weeks, with Milwaukee claiming a 3-0 lead in the season series. The Bucks beat New York 92-90 at home on Feb. 2 and followed four days later with a 103-89 road win. A little over a month later, the Bucks again won at home, 120-112, behind Khris Middleton’s 30 points. Middleton has kicked up his scoring of late John Johnson Jersey , scoring 31 against the Nets, six days after producing 28 points in a 124-122 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.

After Saturday’s matchup, the Knicks close their season with a home-and-home against the Cleveland Cavaliers, beginning Monday at Madison Square Garden for the final time this season before heading to Cleveland on Wednesday to wrap up the campaign.

Milwaukee hosts Orlando on Monday before heading to Philadelphia to play the 76ers on Wednesday for the Bucks’ final regular-season game.

Matt Murray doesn’t keep track of the numbers, which makes it easier for the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender to not get caught up in them.

His goals-against average? No clue. Save percentage? Nope. Pittsburgh’s record during an occasionally uneven regular season for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions? Give Murray a phone and he’ll probably be able to look it up but otherwise he’s just guessing.

”For a goalie, it’s not based on how many goals you let in or how many goals get past you or don’t or how many saves you make,” Murray said. ”It’s not about that. It’s about how you feel.”

And despite a physically and personally draining six months that included multiple extended absences because of injuries and the loss of his father Jim in January, the 23-year-old insists he’ll be ready when the Penguins open the first round of the playoffs against Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

”I still pinch myself every day I get to be a part of something like this,” Murray said. ”It’s so exciting. It’s like Christmas.”

Even if Murray’s first full season as Pittsburgh’s firmly established No. 1 goalie hardly felt like a holiday at times. He missed two weeks in November with a lower-body injury.

A concussion suffered after taking a shot off the mask in practice in February cost him another three weeks. He took a leave to be with his family following his father’s death, but returned eager to get back to the rink that he’s long considered a sanctuary.

Murray ended up starting just 45 games and appearing in only 49, the fewest by the Penguins’ top goaltender in a decade. His goals-against average ticked up (2.92) and his save percentage ticked down (.907) Jabaal Sheard Jersey , both the worst marks of his brief three-year career.

Yet the numbers don’t take into account the occasionally iffy play in front of him, particularly a penalty kill that finished a middling 17th in the NHL.

Yet it’s not the missed backcheck or the inability to get a clear that people notice. It’s when the puck goes in the net.

It’s also, however, why Murray declines to get caught up in his stats. Feel free to point them out. Just don’t be offended when he deletes them immediately. The only shot that matters isn’t the last one, but the next one.

”Every single play, every single shift, every single time somebody touches the puck, everything resets,” he said. ”What happened before doesn’t matter unless you allow it to.”

Something Murray rarely does, part of his preternatural maturity that led the Penguins to make the difficult but necessary decision to leave Marc-Andre Fleury – the winningest goaltender in franchise history and a wildly popular figure both in the dressing room and the city – exposed to Vegas last summer in the expansion draft.

Fleury and Murray took a potentially volatile situation in the spring of 2016 and turned it into part of the foundation that helped the Penguins become the first team in nearly 20 years to win back-to-back Cups.

Sending Fleury to the Golden Knights meant Murray entered this season without the specter of Fleury waiting in the wings should he falter. At times over the winter Murray flip-flopped between dazzling and dull, kind of like his team.

Yet Murray just shrugged his shoulders when asked if he’s worried about his play or staying healthy. He has no control over the latter – there are no guarantees when you make a living willfully putting yourself in front of a piece of rubber hurtling at you at various speeds from various angles – and he’s not concerned about the former.

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan has long placed value on Murray’s ability to not get overwhelmed by the stakes.

There’s a reason Sullivan turned to Murray at every opportunity in the 2016 playoffs – when the then-21-year-old took over after Fleury was diagnosed with a concussion on the eve of the postseason – and again last spring even though Fleury played brilliantly at times while filling in after Murray sustained a lower-body injury during warmups before Game 1 of Pittsburgh’s first-round series against Columbus.

Murray returned and after a wobble in the middle of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final against Nashville Kawann Short Jersey , held the Predators scoreless in Games 5 and 6 . In the giddy aftermath, Fleury passed the Cup to Murray, in many ways a literal passing of the torch from one generation to the next.

There will be no debating this time around for the Penguins as they chase history. While Casey DeSmith picked up his first career shutout in the regular-season finale against Ottawa last Friday, Pittsburgh’s attempt to become the first team since the New York Islanders of the early 1980s to capture three consecutive Cups will depend largely on Murray.

And for all his downplaying of the numbers, Murray is well aware of what having his name on the Cup for a third time in as many years would mean to both himself and the rest of Pittsburgh’s superstar-laden roster.

”We know what’s in front of us,” Murray said. ”We know the opportunity is there for the taking. We’re here and now everything resets. For sure obviously we know what’s at stake.”

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