Josh Hart was too busy turning over the ball when a near-nightmare scenario played out in Game 2 between the Knicks and Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
Jalen Brunson doesn’t know how it happened, but it occurred with under four minutes to go in the first quarter.
Somehow, someway, he tweaked his right foot.
As it would happen, an already injury-stricken Knicks team wouldn’t find better luck on this night.
Brunson signaled, then clapped in the direction of head coach Tom Thibodeau, who subbed him out of the game so he could go to the locker room.
“Jalen never asks out of a game,” Thibodeau said after Game 2. “I knew there was something, then when he didn’t come back, you wait to hear from medical, what they’d say. But I know if he can go, he’s going to go. That’s who he is. They worked on him, he warmed up, he said he could go, so he did.”
Hart, like several of his teammates, thought nothing of Brunson asking off the floor.
Until his absence lingered all the way until halftime.
“In the second quarter, I looked and I think I asked somebody on the back of the bench,” Hart recalled. “I was like, ‘where’s Jalen at?’ We stayed afloat while he was out, and he helped close it.”
That’s when Brunson emerged from the tunnel leading to the court during the halftime break. Fans clamoring for his return showered him with “M-V-P” and “Ja-len Brun-son” chants.
“This place has been nothing but special for me. I appreciate everything [the fans] do,” he said. “It was really cool to hear, but I just knew I had to get my mind in the right place to figure out how I was going to attack the second half.”
With Brunson out, the Knicks floundered, the Pacers outscoring them, 56-39, to take a 10-point lead into the half.
He returned and played every minute of the second half to lead the Knicks to a 130-121 victory over the Pacers in Game 2, finishing a game-high plus-26 in his 32 minutes on the floor.
The Knicks outscored the Pacers, 67-48, over the final two periods. Brunson finished with 29 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from three-point range.
“When he’s out there, there’s a level of calmness: We’ll get the right shot every single time,” said teammate Donte DiVincenzo. “There’s a level of confidence from everybody that we have him on the court with us. Everybody can settle down and play their own game.”
The Knicks have been battered by injury this season.
They sustained another one on Wednesday when OG Anunoby limped to the locker room after pulling his left hamstring on fast break layup.
Anunoby’s uncertain status makes four key rotation players injured two games into the second round: Julius Randle (shoulder surgery) is out for the year, as is sixth man Bojan Bogdanovic (ankle surgery). Backup center Mitchell Robinson is also likely finished for the playoffs after re-injuring his surgically-repaired left ankle in Game 1.
The Knicks can sustain a number of injuries. They secured a victory against the Pacers despite Anunoby, their best defender, checking out with 28 points scored in 28 minutes.
What they cannot afford, however, is losing Brunson, whose injury scare turned The Garden of Dreams into a forest of nightmares, and whose triumphant return saved a playoff run the Knicks hope can mirror their last trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2000.
“He’s a great leader. I think the players all respect for that,” Thibodeau said after the game. “He goes out and he’s willing to give whatever he has. That says a lot about him, and then when you look at what Josh has given us, you have great respect for that. It’s saying a lot. To me, the actions say a lot more than the words. So it says you really care about your team and your teammates. We have a team full of guys like that.”
