Miles McBride will return to action for the Knicks on Sunday after being sidelined since January 27 due to a sports hernia surgery, per James L. Edwards III of The Athletic (via Twitter).
McBride is scoring at a career-best rate this season, averaging 12.9 points per game while hitting a career-high 42.0% of his 6.9 three-point attempts per contest.
His return comes during a key stretch for the Knicks, who are looking to catch the Celtics for the No. 2 seed in the East while playing in Oklahoma City on Sunday and Houston on Tuesday in two of their remaining regular season tests. Entering Sunday, the Knicks trail the Celtics by 1.5 games.
Edwards adds (via Twitter) that McBride will be on a minutes restriction, though he doesn’t specify what the restriction will be. Stefan Bondy of the New York Post adds that Landry Shamet is with the Knicks on their road trip, and, according to coach Mike Brown, is progressing in his recovery from a bone bruise in his knee (Twitter link).
We have more injury notes from around the league:
- According to Trail Blazers coach Tiago Splitter, veteran forward Jerami Grant underwent an MRI on his calf and will remain without a recovery timeline until he can go through more testing, per Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report (via Twitter). Grant said he “felt a pop” in his right calf during the third quarter of Friday’s loss to the Mavericks.
- Anthony Edwards has been upgraded to questionable for the Timberwolves‘ game on Monday, per Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link). Edwards has missed Minnesota’s last six games with a knee injury, with the team going 4-2 during that stretch. The Wolves currently hold a half-game lead over the Rockets for the No. 5 seed in the West.
- The Pistons have a lengthy injury report for Monday’s game against the Thunder, with Jalen Duren (right knee), Tobias Harris (left hip), and Duncan Robinson (right hip) all listed as doubtful, while Ausar Thompson (right ankle) is questionable. Detroit is already missing Cade Cunningham (left lung) and Isaiah Stewart (left calf).
Yeah Deuce! First game back, he should only play short minutes but I bet they’ll be impactful. Let’s go Knicks!
Man, watching him get injured again was brutal. Get well, Deuce.
Looks like he pulled sane thing on that pkay. Hopefully it’s just a bruise. Duece 🙏
No b nch scoring
Knicks with 16 FT . Thunder with 36 FT … 😳
Yeah ok
Still the same issues. Inconsistent bench, Bridges, Towns. This offense can’t be about Brunson. I still don’t see a new offense.
Thunder just play with a different set of rules. They’re allowed to maul everyone on defense, but you look at SGA or Chet the wrong way and it’s a foul. That flagrant 1 on KAT was an absolute joke.
Yeah you can’t breathe on SGA lol. Bench let us down. Would like to see Sochan get mins with Towns. Our D needed to be better.
Yep. Too bad Deuce got hurt again and Shamet was out. Hope the Knicks are healthy come playoff time. They have enough talent. It’s a matter of effort, coaching, and wanting it.
Yeah, the NBA wants to be sure to take advantage of that huge OKC market by giving favored treatment to the Thunder. Is this completely illogical, or simply geocentrism run rampant? The 28th biggest gets favored treatment over the biggest because it’s … it’s … it’s, good economics? HELP! HELP! THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!
@Meadowlark: You don’t watch games, huh?
At Al. Yep…welcome to the NBA Adam Silver addition.
Come on Pistons, no one wants OKC to flop their way to the #1 seed again. Any team as bad as OKC away shouldn’t have home court advantage.
The game’s best moment from a NYK perspective was Brown getting a technical. It was almost as if he cared; though he was more likely just weary of watching what’s left of KAT and Bridges on the offensive end after a year in his new offense.
At this point, I don’t see any reason to care about the balance of the regular season, or who we play in the first round. The FO and HC haven’t cared about it from the start. They’re relying “health” – and being able to flick a switch – come playoff time. The players fought it for awhile, but appear to have capitulated.
IMO, this FO has implemented one of the worst “run it back” efforts in recent history. Hiring a baby sitter to replace the guy who built the team. Brown’s only real accomplishment this season was stripping the team of the identity it had built up over 3 seasons. The good news is the 2k’ers in the NYK FO now have their dream team, reflecting their input. We’ll see how it ends. My only hope is they own the results. Yes, I’m laughing.
“Hiring a baby sitter to replace the guy who built the team.”
When did they fire Leon Rose? Thibs did not build this team. I don’t know if Brown is the answer (I personally don’t think he is) but the Knicks went as far as they could with Thibs.
Thibs did build it. Imo he wasn’t a Towns guy. And that’s why he got fired. Knicks still run Thibs offense. Iso Brunson when the going gets tough lol.
Brown was brought here to spread the offense. Hasn’t really happened.
Thibs didn’t acquire any players. He helped change the culture but he didn’t ‘build’ the team. Rose did.
Thibs kind of players. He told Rose who to get . Thats why he is gone. Thibs always does it his way. Everywhere he’s been. The picks are his kind of pkayers. He redid this team the first yr. He knows Jalen since he was a kid. Why didn’t Rose get him a bench for pjayoffs. Why didn’t he sign Warren for playoffs.
No one in the league got Warren because he’s not good enough. Rose built this team. Thibs did not have that kind of sway to just tell Rose, “get me Brunson, OG, Bridges, Hart, KAT, etc” and poof, it gets done.
Warren was avg 26 a gm. He was a big body they needed. Who cares about anyone else. Knicks needed him and he was available. All that natters bro. Thibs built this. He did something they haven’t done. In 25 yrs plus. Imo Rose got Towns. Thibs wasn’t down with it after a yr. And Dolan let him go. You can’t fire players. So Thibs took the the hit. Rose doesn’t know how to build teams. He’s a players agent. Suppose to know talent. Shhh I’ll be the judge of that.
Thibs rubs people the wrong way at times. I’m a big Thibs guy. He knows how to build winning teams. He’s not a GM. He knows ball and to build teams only. McBride, Mitch, Grimes, Randle, Shamet, OG, Brunson all upped their game cause of Thibs.
Even today when the going gets tough. Knicks still run Jalen Iso. Thats a Thibs offense lol. What’s that tell you.
@rct – There is more to building a team than acquiring the parts. The mere fact that Thibs took largely the same parts that finished 17-65 to the playoffs in year one (Rose didn’t draft or sign any starter on that team) should demonstrate that. Maybe some teams are built solely through roster contruction by the FO. But, unless the roster is truly superior, such teams rarely win. Most teams that win are also built around an identity under which they can consistently maximize the talent they do have. With a few exceptions, its the HC that instills that in a team, and stands watch over it. The NYK teams of the past 4-5 years (more than most NBA teams) were built largely around an identity of out working, out hustling and out preparing, and being more physical than, the opposition. You have to realize, that’s GONE. Maybe the roster is so good we don’t need it. Maybe rest is more important. Maybe it’s just the playoffs that matter, and we’re clutch. We’ll see.
Last night, at least we got to watch one team with a strong defensive oriented identity playing to it. OKC has great talent (the type you only get by tanking), and a championship in hand, yet they aren’t relying on either being good enough on its own. They play ferocious defense every night, without taking many possessions off. It may annoy you that they get calls, and/or their opponents don’t get them, but that’s what identity does. Like a reputation, it precedes them. With the referees. With their opponents. With each other. Just like the NYK’s lack of an identity precedes them.
“There is more to building a team than acquiring the parts.”
Disagree. Luke Walton went 39-4 with a good roster. Then he went to two other teams with lesser rosters and stunk it up. What your roster is is far more important than who is coaching the team.
“The mere fact that Thibs took largely the same parts that finished 17-65 to the playoffs in year one”
For starters, it was 21-45, not 17-65. Huge difference there. Second, Quickley, Rose, Alec Burks, Noel, and Toppin were new. Third, RJ was terrible as a rookie and progressed in year two. Fourth, Taj Gibson went from starting 56 of the 66 games in that 21 win season to 3 under Thibs and Mitch started a lot of games.
I’m not saying Thibs is a bad coach. He’s not. He’s exactly what the Knicks needed at that time. But the idea that he ‘built’ this current team is not based in reality.
Whenever a team improves, 100% of the time, it will be reflected in improved performance of the players. They’re opposite sides of the same coin. Going from 21-45 to 41-31 isn’t explained by adding a few pieces, or a few guys just improved by themselves. All teams have that year to year.
“It may annoy you that they get calls, and/or their opponents don’t get them, but that’s what identity does.”
The fact that you seem to recognize that OKC plays by a different set of rules than the rest of the league, but it doesn’t bother you and you’re criticizing me for being annoyed by it is very weird. Their ‘identity’, which is an undefinable nonsense term, gets them a better whistle than any other team in the league. Are you saying this is a good thing?
Really, the notion of a team having an identity is nonsense to you? OK. I guess it explains a lot. You’re on the right site.
FWIW, I don’t believe the league applies a different set of rules to OKC. OKC just makes things harder on the officials than other teams by consistently operating close to the line. Teams that put in the effort required to do that, always have a better chance of getting away with crossing the line at times. From my perspective, as a NYK fan, it is NOT a good thing that OKC, and not the NYK, are the team putting in that effort. Add the fact that the NBA has spent the 20 years torturing its rule book, and the officials charged with enforcing it, such that its now hard to know if there even is an objective line any longer. This is also, in my view, NOT a good thing.