Knicks star guard Jalen Brunson was diagnosed with a Grade 1 ankle sprain last week. On Monday, Brunson was already spotted firing up jump shots in Miami’s Kaseya Center, according to Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News.
Now, there’s a possibility he’ll be back as soon as Wednesday. He’s listed as questionable to play against Dallas, Stefan Bondy of the New York Post tweets. Brunson has missed the last two games, in which the Knicks split a home-and-home with the Heat.
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- Mitchell Robinson logged fewer than 20 minutes against the Heat on Monday and hasn’t exceeded 20 minutes in any games he’s played. However, that could change as soon as the next game. “[His minutes limit] has increased. It’s gone up three times,” coach Mike Brown said, per Bondy. “It’s all part of the load-management thing. So it’s not necessarily a restriction. It’s just continuing the process with our load management. So it’s going up. He could’ve played 27 minutes.”
- Jordan Clarkson admits that spending the last couple of years with the rebuilding Jazz affected his play. He has a different mindset playing for a contender this season. “It’s a level of focus. I’m glad to be back in this and part of this and back contending, be in the playoffs and know that we’re playing for something,” Clarkson told Bondy. “That changes a player’s mindset. It’s just a bunch of focus that goes into it and I’m locked in.” Clarkson scored 24 and 14 points, respectively, in the two matchups with Miami. He’s shooting 46.7% overall and 38.8% from deep this season — both marks would be well above his career averages.
- In a film breakdown, The Athletic’s James Edwards III displays how the Knicks’ defensive schemes, which are focused on sealing off the paint, allows opponents to pursue three-point opportunities. The Knicks are second worst in the league in three-point defense, allowing opponents to shoot 39.4% from beyond the arc.
Jalen don’t rush back man. Take your time bro please.
Knicks don’t need Mitch to play more than 20-22 mins. That’s what a backup C plays. If you believe in Towns then he is your Center playing 32-34 mins a game AT Center.
Clarkson has to be ready man. We need consistency from him. He is starting to come around. McBride is the guy who needs to step up and handle PG. That’s what Knicks need most from him. Concentrate on ast not scoring. Scoring should come natural to a PG. Cause he handles the ball so much.
Their 3 pt defense is a JOKE, and its ceasing to draw laughs. 29th in a 30 team league, a third of which is trying to lose. Despite all those (supposed) defensive benefits inside, they’re still only middling overall in defensive rating (16th).
It’s first and foremost an indictment of KAT as a rim protector (lol). Truth is almost all teams prioritize interior defense, the good ones just have that start with a real rim protector. One that their perimeter defenders trust to cover for them, so they don’t have to leave guys wide open from deep so constantly.
Also an indictment of Brown as a HC. This 3 pt shooting defense problem was there last year. Not this bad, but bad enough where it had to be evident to anyone looking at our game film from last year. He didn’t try anything to fix it schematically. When he spoke of it at all, he pointed to Mitch as a guy who can stabilize things. But Mitch doesn’t play every game, or that much in the games he does play. We don’t win last night without using KAT-Mitch offense/defense in the last minutes of the game, and anyone who watched the game knows that comes with trade-offs.
The FO is not blameless either. Yabusele? Really? That was their answer to this. I understand resources were (and are) tight, but that’s all the more reason that you don’t sign a non-defender who saddles you with a hard cap. They needed length, not width. I guess WWW got confused.