Injuries are making things interesting in the Eastern Conference playoff race.
Let’s start with the Knicks.
New York played the second half of Wednesday’s loss with two healthy lead guards: Tyler Kolek and Delon Wright. The Clippers dominated the Knicks for much of the second half and walked out of The Garden with a win.
The Knicks will wake up Thursday morning in third place in the East, three games up on the Pacers with 10 games to play.
Can they maintain that three-game lead while dealing with injuries to their top three guards? Do they want to maintain the third seed – or is it better to drop to four?
These are all questions to ask over the next two weeks.
On the injury front, the Knicks will be without Jalen Brunson (ankle) for at least the next two games. (As an aside: if his rehab continues to go well, I think Brunson will be able to play in several regular season games before the postseason. This is important for New York because it gives Brunson some time to regain his rhythm/conditioning ahead of the postseason).
In addition to Brunson, the Knicks will probably be without Cam Payne for Friday’s game against Milwaukee. Payne sprained his ankle in the first half on Wednesday (while scoring 15 points). He wasn’t available in the second half.
Tom Thibodeau said it’s possible that Miles McBride returns on Friday, but he also said McBride has been limited in his court work as he rehabs a groin strain.
So it seems like the Knicks will be significantly short-handed on Friday in Milwaukee.
They’ll face a Bucks team dealing with a serious injury to Damian Lillard. Lillard has a blood clot in his right calf and is out indefinitely.
You hate to see Lillard hurt; his injury will have a significant impact on the Eastern Conference playoff race and the postseason.
The Pacers, Pistons and Bucks are separated by two games in the standings. If the season finished today, the Knicks would play Milwaukee in the first round and, presumably, Boston in the second round.
If the Knicks fell to fourth place they would be lined up to play the Cavaliers in the second round. Is Cleveland a better matchup than Boston? That’s a matter of opinion. But you can make an argument that the Knicks have a better chance to advance in the second round if they finish fourth in the East than they would if they finish third.
They also have the seventh toughest remaining schedule in the NBA, per Tankathon.
ROBINSON BACK-TO-BACK
Mitchell Robinson has not yet been cleared by the Knicks medical staff to play in back-to-back games. He sat out of Tuesday’s win over Dallas and played 13 minutes on Wednesday against the Clippers.
The Knicks have three back-to-backs in their final eight games. Robinson told SNY that he’ll "probably" be cleared to play in back-to-backs before the end of the regular season.
“We’ll just see how it goes. Kind of still following doctors orders, making sure everything goes smoothly,” he said.
The Knicks’ final back-to-back is April 10-11.
Robinson doesn’t stay idle when he misses a game on a back-to-back. He said that he lifts, does conditioning work and does some game simulation while he’s out. If he can do that, it seems like he should be able to play in both games of a back-to-back soon.
HART ATTACK
Josh Hart had four assists in the first quarter on Wednesday but had to sit at the start of the second quarter due to foul trouble. Hart at times was being guarded by the Clippers’ big man. New York was able to take advantage of the scenario.
“We got good shots off of that, a stagger, back cut, those kind of things, dribble handoff, stuff like that,” Hart said. Playing faster, that’s something that we want to do, especially with a five on me. I feel like we started to do that and the foul trouble threw us off.”
Hart’s play while guarded by a big is something to keep an eye on moving forward.
