OG Anunoby of the New York Knicks grimaces while attempting...

OG Anunoby of the New York Knicks grimaces while attempting a shot against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac

Given what they could have learned, the Knicks received a huge dose of good news Monday, although none of it was going to help them immediately.

X-rays and an MRI determined that OG Anunoby suffered a mild sprain to his right foot on Saturday night. He was ruled out of Monday night’s game against the Houston Rockets at the Garden, but coach Tom Thibodeau believes it is not a long-term injury.

On the same day, Mitchell Robinson finally took a long-awaited step. The center has been cleared for contact, the next part of the process to ready him for his season debut.

How long Anunoby will be sidelined remained vague. When Robinson will make it into a game (and if that will be for the Knicks, with the trade deadline on Thursday) remained a mystery.

“We’ll see how he responds to the treatment. It would be premature to say,” Thibodeau said when asked if Anunoby has been ruled out of the second night of the back-to-back set Tuesday night in Toronto.

“You just deal with the reality of it. Good that it’s a mild sprain and then just work your way through the treatment and get ready to go.”

Thibodeau called it day-to-day, but Anunoby has a history of not coming back quickly from injuries. He has never played more than 69 games in a season since his rookie year.

He played only 50 games last season, sidelined by a right elbow injury that eventually required surgery. He then suffered a hamstring injury in the playoffs and attempted a Game 7 comeback in the Eastern Conference semifinals. He was unable to move well and the return lasted less than five minutes.

Without Anunoby, the Knicks went with Precious Achiuwa (the Rockets were without center Alperen Sengun). Anunoby went out in the opening minutes of the second half on Saturday night, and Achiuwa finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds in 29:29.

Asked what Achiuwa can provide in place of defensive stopper Anunoby, Thibodeau said, “Versatility, athleticism, can guard multiple positions. He can switch one through five. Run the floor, play with pace, very good in the pocket, very good offensive rebounder. He’s done a good job for us.”

Rockets coach Ime Udoka knew that the absence of Anunoby would make a difference.

“It’s a guy you have to account for,” Udoka said. “They’ve got quite a few wings that do similar things, so they’ll make up for that. He is a matchup problem at times due to his versatility of shooting threes, posting up, getting the rebounds. So it seems like they have him, [Josh] Hart, Mikal Bridges, all those guys do similar things.

“But he brings a level of physicality to the team that is hard to combat if you don’t have the right guys on him. So yeah, I’m sure they’ve got guys just like we do that will step up and make up for it. But kind of shakes their ecosystem like the way Fred [VanVleet] and [Sengun] being out of ours does.’’

Although the Knicks would put no timeline on a return for Robinson, it was a step forward in his rehabilitation from the ankle surgery he underwent in May. Robinson had hinted on social media that he had received good news, and Thibodeau confirmed it.

“Yeah, he’s cleared, so the next step will be start taking contact in practice,” Thibodeau said. “And obviously there’s a number of steps for him to go through. The next step is the contact part of practice, so just get going with that.”

Thibodeau said last week that once Robinson begins the contact, he will start with one-on-one work and work his way up to five-on-five before getting cleared for game action.

Robinson has been a mystery all season long, and it doesn’t change with this news. He has been the subject of trade talk, with a number of teams interested in the athletic 7-footer. If he’s healthy, he could provide the sort of help the Knicks are searching for: a defensive-minded big man to aid Karl-Anthony Towns.

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