Here's how J.R. Smith summed up the New York Knicks' effort in the first half against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night: "Really embarrassing."

The Knicks lost to the Bucks 117-113, allowing them to score 66 points in the first half. The Bucks hit six of their first nine 3-pointers and went on a 30-9 run in the second quarter.

Smith said Knicks coach Derek Fisher had to remind his players to play with some intensity in the locker room at halftime, according to reports.

That didn't sit well with Smith.

"Coach challenged us at halftime to go out there and play hard and see what happens. For some reason, it's something we have to be reminded of, to play hard, which is really embarrassing at some point because you're a professional athlete," Smith said. "People pay a lot of money to come watch us play. Competing shouldn't be an issue. So they came out and ... that second quarter, they just kicked it into another gear. For some reason, we just wait until we're down and just start playing, and we can't do that."

Milwaukee entered play Tuesday with the lowest shooting percentage on 3-pointers in the NBA. But the Bucks hit 53 percent of their 3s against New York (9-for-17), which is an ongoing issue for Fisher's club.

Smith said the Knicks didn't react well to the Bucks' hot shooting.

"They were getting a lot of wide-open shots. We just have to be mentally tougher than what we were -- putting our heads down and quote-unquote bad body language and stuff like that," Smith said. "Whenever they score, we just have to understand that they're professional just like we are. People are going to score points, it's just a matter of how we react to it. We couldn't get stops in the crunch and we just have to do a better job of that."

The Knicks fell to 3-9 with the loss and have dropped eight of their last nine games. They play at the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.

Question: Do you agree with J.R. Smith? Was the Knicks' lack of effort on defense embarrassing Tuesday night? How can they solve their issues on defense?

Note: You can listen to Knicks vs. Timberwolves starting at 7:30 p.m. on 1050 AM.

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