New York Knicks
starting wing OG Anunoby changed his approach during the build-up to his second comeback from his elbow injury.
“Maybe less shooting. Building up the shooting, not just going back to shooting like I normally shoot,” Anunoby told reporters after the loss, per New York Post. “So just taking my time and it’s going to get better and better.”
Anunoby finished with 12 points on 5 of 8 shooting with two steals in 29 minutes in his return from a nine-game absence. He did not show any discomfort as he even dunked in traffic.
But despite his plus-5 stint on the floor, the Knicks fell short 108-100 to the Chicago Bulls on Friday, April 5, at United Center.
“He’s good,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters of Anunoby’s latest comeback. “First game back. So that’s a good sign.”
What OG Anunoby’s Return Means to Knicks
Anunoby’s return is crucial for the Knicks, especially after losing three-time All-Star forward Julius Randle to a season-ending surgery.
Anunoby’s return gives Thibodeau a versatile two-way player to alleviate the Knicks’ heavy dependence on Jalen Brunson. The Knicks are plus-7.9 with Brunson on the floor and minus-3.1 with him on the bench.
“I’m happy he’s back, happy he’s healthy,” Brunson told reporters, per New York Post. “Obviously, we didn’t win so it clouds my judgment right now (on how Anunoby played), but just happy he’s healthy and out there.”
Anunoby started, relegating Miles McBride back to the second unit. Thibodeau staggered Anunoby and Brunson in the first half before heavily playing them together in the second half.
The non-Brunson minutes at the start of the second quarter with Anunoby leading the Knicks ended up even as the Bulls maintained their lead 35-23 from 29-17 at the end of the opening period. But it’s hard to gauge anything from it as Josh Hart, a staple in non-Brunson minutes, was ejected late in the first quarter.
OG Anunoby Re-Injury Still a Cause of Concern
While Anunoby looked good in his return, the risk of re-aggravating the injury remains, according to Dr. Brian Sutterer, a sports medicine doctor who educates fans on different types of athlete injuries on his YouTube channel.
“When you’re trying to manage tendonitis tendinopathy anywhere in the body, it’s not something hard and fast that you have to sit out for,” Dr. Sutterer said in his breakdown of Anunoby’s injury. “It’s often a load management, pain management, pain tolerance type of question. And so if all it took was those few games back reaching in for a steal to re-aggravate it to this extent, I worry that it’s so sensitive to getting flared up again that when he does try to come back, he’s going to just re-irritate this. So I am not all that optimistic that he remains back in the lineup on a consistent basis.”
Dr. Sutterer suggested that the Knicks’ best course of action is to manage it until their season ends.
“It’s going to be this tightrope balance of how much that tendon gets irritated until we can get to the off-season and do hopefully some more type of definitive treatment,” Dr. Sutterer said.
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