Miles McBride returned to the New York Knicks’ lineup on Sunday night after missing almost 30 games following sports hernia surgery. One half of basketball later, he was injured again and needed to sit out the rest of the loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Knicks released the first official update on the status of McBride’s health on Monday afternoon, listing the guard as “questionable” for their Monday night game against the Houston Rockets. While that isn’t any sort of guarantee that he’ll return, it’s certainly a positive that he wasn’t already ruled “out."
The fifth-year guard was also seen with the rest of the team on Tuesday, just as sweaty as everyone else following shoot around. That seems like a good sign regarding his fate for the rest of the season.
McBride seems to be alright after injury scare vs. OKC Thunder
The NBA Playoffs are just weeks away. While the Knicks were trending in the right direction as a whole throughout McBride’s initial absence, there are still more questions than answers when it comes to projecting their potential success in the postseason.
McBride's health was certainly one of those questions, but the answer was supposed to be simple: he'd take his time with his recovery so that, once he returned, he'd be ready to go for the rest of the year.
Whether the injury he sustained against the Thunder was a re-aggravation or something new entirely remains unknown, but it's clear that it isn't inhibiting him entirely from participating in basketball activities.
The Knicks can’t afford to lose McBride, again, for much longer
McBride is both one of the best defenders and 3-point shooters on the roster. He might just have the best blend of those two skills of any Knick player. They're going to need him in the playoffs, just like they have over the last two seasons.
The guard opened up their first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers with a 21-point performance, one of seven times that postseason that he finished in double-digit scoring figures. He averaged 5.8 points in 18.9 minutes per game across three rounds of last year's playoff action, shooting 37.3% from behind the arc on 59 total attempts.
McBride isn't some magical world-beater in the playoffs. But he's good at every single thing that you'd want role players around guys like Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns to excel at. Players like Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson, and McBride need to bring it on a nightly basis to provide their stars with the best insulation possible.
Hopefully for Deuce, and the Knicks, it was just an unfortunate tweak: not an additional obstacle.