Knicks return to second half amid more stringent COVID-19 protocols
Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau looks on in the first half of an NBA game against the Pacers on Feb. 27 at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Elsa
With the All-Star Game behind them, the accolades for an overachieving first half of the season recorded, the Knicks players returned Tuesday, getting their COVID-19 testing done and readying for the start of the second half of the season.
The easy way to look at the second half of the season for the Knicks is that with an accelerated growth spurt under first-year head coach Tom Thibodeau they should be as prepared as possible for a brutal second-half schedule. But nothing in this evolving NBA season is as easy as it might seem.
The league already has put in place increasingly stringent protocols for the first week back of the second half of the season. They are limiting practice times and increasing testing to try to avoid the sort of troubles that surfaced at times in the first half when 31 games were postponed because of Health and Safety Protocols. The changes taking effect in this first week are similar to cautions that the league implemented at the start of training camp this season.
The Knicks did better than most, the only game they were forced to postpone came when the San Antonio Spurs had too many players in the COVID protocols to field a team. Frank Ntilikina was quarantined in a Miami hotel for a week due to contact tracing after coming in close contact with someone outside the organization who had tested positive. And then in the final days of the first half of the season Derrick Rose was lost for the last two games with a bizarre sequence of testing — an inconclusive test that sat him for one game followed by multiple negative tests, but then again forced to sit out the last game.
"I think, I’ve mentioned this many times, with Dr. [Lisa] Callahan and [trainers] Roger Hinds and Anthony Goenaga, they’ve been fantastic all year, being on top of it," Thibodeau said on the last day before heading into the break. "We have been fortunate. But when you begin the season and you take all the things that go into a season you plan on situations like this.
"Whether you treat it as you would an injury, you’re not sure, you can have an injury at any time and you have to have a plan in place, a strategy for everything, so when one guy goes out that’s why it’s so important to work with everyone who’s not in the rotation. You know that time is coming when they will be in the rotation and your job is to make sure everyone is ready. So I’m proud of our guys because of their willingness to work and prepare themselves. That’s what leads me to have great confidence in them."
There are no sure things right now and the troubles could be seen on display Sunday at the All-Star Game when Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid were unable to play due to a positive COVID test for a barber they had been in contact with in Philadelphia. 76ers coach Doc Rivers saw this as a hint of what could come.
"Yeah, the league did a great job at least getting information out," Rivers said. "Elton Brand and Daryl [Morey] spoke to the team right after the [last] game.
"I’ve been very surprised and proud of our guys. This is a young group of guys who do believe they’re invincible. Let’s just make that right — they’re not scared of much of anything. They’ve done great staying out of that stuff for the most part. Let’s hope that they can do it over this break because the last thing we need is an outbreak to start this second half. Looks like we may be having one as a team so I’m already concerned."
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
