MILWAUKEE — Tyson Chandler sat at his locker, staring at the box score for a full minute, shaking his head. Raymond Felton darted out of the locker room without talking despite requests for him to stop.
A rocky season had just gotten a lot rockier. Carmelo Anthony’s alma mater Syracuse was named the No. 1 college team in the country Monday, but his NBA team, the Knicks, went out and resembled one of the league’s worst.
The Knicks lost to the league’s worst team, the lowly Bucks, 101-98, in a nail-biter before a sparse but electrified crowd at Bradley Center.
With the score knotted at 98 after an Anthony 3-pointer, Bucks point guard Brandon Knight sized up Felton and fired up a 3-pointer from the right wing to give Milwaukee the winning points with 1.4 seconds left.
It was a miserable night for Felton, with coach Mike Woodson critical of his defense on the final play. He was 1-of-7 from the field for three points, including two airballs on floaters. His seven assists didn’t make up for it.
“Raymond kind of backed off a little bit,’’ Woodson said. “I thought he could have been a little more aggressive on it. He kind of walked into it and Brandon made a hell of a shot. … I got to get Raymond going.’’
Somehow the Knicks sparked the Bucks’ competitive spirit for one evening as they played some of their most lax defense of the new year. Anthony scored 17 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter, but ultimately couldn’t rally his team from a 10-point deficit early in the period. They also lost despite J.R. Smith going for 30 points.
“I’m not taking anything away from Milwaukee, but this was a game I thought we could have won and just let it get away,’’ Woodson said.
Anthony made 3-of-4 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, scoring all 17 of his points in the final 8:44.
“It’s a tough situation to be in, myself and J.R. combining for 66 points and still coming up short,” Anthony said. “That guy hit a tough shot at the end. It came down to that shot. Regardless of what happened before, it came down to that shot. He made a big-time shot.’’
The Knicks had one last crack at saving face. Felton inbounded to Anthony, who took a dribble and fired up a 30-foot prayer that went wide, failing to hit the rim.
The Knicks now have 29 losses — one more defeat than all of last season. The Knicks plummeted to 19-29 and the Bucks moved to 9-39. The Bucks easily have the league’s worst record as they tank for the draft, after going 1-14 in January. The Knicks don’t have a first-round pick.
“They’re still a professional team,’’ Anthony said. “They have something to prove. Those guys wanted to come out and beat us. We represent New York. We play with New York on our chest. Every time we step on the court no matter where, guys want to beat us.’’
Chandler, who had predicted the Knicks moving up to the third seed days ago, was clipped with his answers after scouring the box score, which showed his 1-of-6 showing from the free-throw line.
“You can say a lot of things,’’ Chandler said. “I thought down the stretch we put ourselves in situations to win the game. We just had some tough breaks. If it went to overtime, we probably would’ve gotten the win.’’
Actually probably not, as the Knicks’ defense kept getting worse. The Bucks were 5-of-5 from 3-point land in the second quarter and finished 11-of-18 from the stripe. Knight finished with 25 points, Khris Middleton nailed 5-of-6 from 3-point land for 19 points and the Greek rookie, Giannis Antetokounmpo put on a show, too, scoring 15 points with some electric fastbreak drives.
When Amar’e Stoudemire coughed it up, Antetokounmpo got out on the break and scored on a putback dunk to put the Bucks up 10, 81-71 with 8:44 left.
“They did great job,’’ Smith said. “Our game plan was to switch. We didn’t switch. Offense wasn’t the problem. We got what we wanted. It was just defense.’’
After Smith cut it to 96-95 with a 3-pointer, Zaza Pachulia made a great pass to a backdoor-cutting Knight for the layup, making it 98-95 with 27.5 seconds to go.
The Knicks trailed the entire second half after getting off to an 11-3 hole to start. On one third-quarter fastbreak, Bucks center Larry Sanders simply outhustled Chandler and Anthony down the floor to take a feed and score a layup.
When Bucks center Larry Sanders fouled out with 2:59 left, he spent nearly half-minute gyrating to the crowd to pump them up. The small crowd went wild. It was the kind of emotion and spirit the Knicks lacked all night.