Knicks getting healthier and glad for Thanksgiving break from tough schedule
Knicks guard Quentin Grimes attempts a layup against the Cavaliers in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 1. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
GREENBURGH — There’s something to be said for timing, and after a brutal stretch where the Knicks played five straight games on the road — on top of the four back-to-backs they’ve already had this season — timing finally appears to be on their side.
Everyone is healthy or getting healthier, Tom Thibodeau said after practice at the MSG training facility Wednesday. Thursday is Thanksgiving and players will be off and visiting their families, and when they take on the Heat in what could be a pivotal game for this year’s in-season tournament, they’ll have finally shaken off the fatigue that looked to plague them in Monday’s loss to the Timberwolves.
“I think it came at the right time,” said Quentin Grimes, who said he suffered no ill effects from his Monday return from an injured wrist. “What did we have? Three or four back-to-backs? A lot of teams had three or four back-to-backs, so it was kind of a [difficult] stretch. Thanksgiving [and you get to] see your family, kind of recharge real quick. Recharge and get it rolling.”
Friday will mark the third of four games in the group round of the in-season tournament — likely a pivotal one, since the Knicks split the first two — and it’s a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, which the Heat won in six games. It’s the first of four straight home games (only the last one, against the Pistons, is the first leg of a home-away back-to-back), and Thibodeau has also seen marked improvement in Evan Fournier, who’s been nursing an ankle injury. Fournier went through a full practice.
In short, in a season full of the unknown, the Knicks have a real chance to stabilize in a way they haven’t yet been allowed to.
“We just went through the six in nine, so it’s a nice chance to get some recovery, get ready for the next one,” Thibodeau said. “I think we had a challenging start, because of the way it unfolded, but sometimes the schedule is in your favor, sometimes, it’s not. But I thought overall, we handled it well…There’s still obviously a lot of work to be done, and there’s many things that we have to improve upon. But just keep the focus on each day. Don’t look backward. Don’t look ahead. Concentrate on exactly what’s in front of us.”
That, of course, is Jimmy Butler and the Heat, in what’s formed into an interesting rivalry. Add the in-season tournament to the mix, and Grimes, at least, said that Friday’s game could have a little extra juice.
“We’ve got to kind of come in with a chip on our shoulder going into this game,” he said. “Jimmy kind of did his thing last season in the playoffs against us, so there’s going to be a little bit more urgency when we play an in-season tournament game. So there's definitely going to be a lot more urgency going into that game.”
The shot at a $500,000 per-player championship purse doesn’t hurt, either. First, though, they have to survive group play.
“Everybody always talks about the Cup and everything, but I feel like everybody's really going out and playing for that money,” he said, laughing. (Grimes is making $2.385 million this year, so the purse is hardly chump change.) “We aren’t sugarcoating it. Everybody is trying to go out there and play for that money. It definitely gives you extra motivation to get in the tournament, be there in Vegas and try to win the whole thing, for sure.”
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
