Getty Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks drives to the basket against Andrew Nembhard #2 of the Indiana Pacers during the fourth quarter in Game Two of the Eastern Conference Second Round Playoffs.
New York Knicks All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson will play in Game 3 against the Indiana Pacers despite his questionable tag, according to TNT/Bleacher Report’s NBA insider Chris Haynes.
“In Game 3, he is listed as questionable but sources have relayed to me that Jalen Brunson will indeed play tonight in Indiana,” Haynes said. “While the Knicks are up 2-0 now, they’re gonna need all Brunson that they can have because OG Anunoby is out with a hamstring injury.”
Even if Brunson was not 100% healthy, he still wreaked havoc in the second half of Game 2 after sitting out the entire second quarter to attend to his foot injury in the Knicks’ locker room.
“When he came back in the second half of Game 2, he completely turned the game around,” Haynes added. “When he was out, the Knicks were a shell of themselves. But you see the impact that Jalen Brunson has — the command he has, the attention that the Pacers have to show him, he’s truly one of the best point guards we have in this league. So it’d be good to see Jalen Brunson in the lineup tonight against the Pacers. The Knicks are going to desperately need him and he’s going to have to produce.”
Brunson scored 24 of his 29 points in the second half to lead the Knicks’ comeback from a 73-63 deficit.
“He’s a great leader, so I think the players all have respect for that, when a guy goes out and is willing to give whatever he has, and so that says a lot about him,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters after their Game 2 win.
OG Anunoby Could Miss More Time
Anunoby exited late in the fourth quarter of Game 2 with a hamstring injury after scoring a playoff career-high 28 points.
The fear is he would miss not only Game 3 but Game 4 as well.
“I’m told it’s unlikely OG Anunoby plays in Game 4 [either] but he has yet to be ruled out,” ESPN’s NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported on “NBA Countdown” on May 9. “He was evaluated before the team left for Indiana today and that assessment continuing this evening. I’m told the expectation is he is unlikely to be available in Game 4.”
According to Jeff Stotts, a sports injury expert and certified athletic trainer, the average recovery time for a low-grade hamstring strains is roughly 13 days or five games as reported by SNY’s Ian Begley.
Next Man up Mentality
The Knicks are no stranger to this situation. They have stayed afloat and roared to a 2-seed finish in the regular season with extensive absences of Anunoby, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson.
Randle (shoulder) and Robinson (ankle) and Bojan Bogdanovic (foot) were already ruled out for the remainder of the season.
“We’ll be fine,” Knicks shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo told SNY. “It’s what we’ve done all year. Weather the storm and we’ll be fine.”
Without Anunoby, Thibodeau will have to lean more on Precious Achiuwa, who has played sparingly in the playoffs until Game 2.
Achiuwa produced eight points on 4 of 5 shooting and pulled down five rebounds in 28 minutes off the bench in Game 2. Veteran guard Alec Burks could also see more minutes.
Thibodeau played him one minute in Game 2 when Brunson was in the locker room attending to his foot. It was Burks’s first game since April 12.