Even one game is too much for the Knicks to be without Jalen Brunson right now, but a new injury forced the All-Star point guard to sit out for the second time this month.
Brunson, who didn’t play on Feb. 8 against the Mavericks due to a sprained right ankle, was unable to go in the Knicks’ 115-92 win over the Pelicans with what the team listed as cervical spasms in his neck suffered the previous night against the Pistons.
“He took some hits in the game. When he woke up this morning he had some spasms,” Tom Thibodeau said of Brunson before the New Orleans game. “He tried, he went through a bunch of treatments and stuff, so we tried to see where he was and just didn’t feel good about it.”
Isaiah Hartenstein also was out with recurring soreness in his left Achilles.
The center also had missed three games before the All-Star break with the injury.
“Same thing. Just where we are in the season, we thought the smart thing was take tonight off, get rest, do your recovery,” Thibodeau said. “He came in and we knew it would be limited. We wanted to see where he was. OK, where we are right now, it’s better — he’s ramping things up again. That’s where we are with that.”
The Knicks also have been without Mitchell Robinson (ankle), Julius Randle (shoulder) and OG Anunoby (elbow) for several weeks.
Brunson has had to carry much of the scoring load, and he netted 35 points with 12 assists over 40 minutes in Monday’s last-second win over Detroit.
“I mean, it’s part of sports … people get hurt,” Thibodeau added. “Everyone deals with something, most guys at this point of the season, have something they’re dealing with.
“So, it’s what happens, and the only way to guarantee nothing happens is don’t play. I know how lucky we are with the guys that we have. Jalen, Julius, Isaiah, those guys, they work their way through things, they give us whatever they have, they give it to us. And so we’re fortunate we have a whole team full of guys like that. Donte [DiVincenzo], Josh [Hart], you can go down the list.”
Brunson, who was replaced in Tuesday’s starting lineup by Miles McBride, clearly is the Knicks’ most indispensible player.
To wit, the point guard was the calming force during the frantic closing sequence Monday night against the Pistons.
They came after DiVincenzo appear to commit a foul that was not called and before Hart’s go-ahead bucket while drawing a foul at the rim lifted the Knicks to a late victory.
Amid the chaos all around him, and with the clock racing toward zeroes, Brunson scooped up the ball after DiVincenzo had dislodged it from Pistons rookie Ausar Thompson along the sideline, took a few dribbles to his left and coolly found Hart for his 12th and most important assist of the game.
“That’s the thing, he’s always cool, calm and collected,” Hart said of Brunson, who also was a teammate at Villanova. “Never in a rush. He goes out there and he tries to make the right play. So I’m not sure if he had a shot or not, I don’t know. But he trusted me to make a play at that point in the game.
“That’s just the kind of player he is; he’s going to make the right play. Whether that’s shooting or making the right pass.”
The game marked Brunson’s 15th with at least 30 points over 24 appearances since the beginning of January, raising his overall scoring average to 27.7 points per game.
“He’s always at his best when his best is needed,” Thibodeau said. “That’s what I respect about him. He doesn’t get rattled. He can miss a shot. He’ll move onto the next play, make a play, find a way to win.”