{"id":133118,"date":"2025-04-07T15:28:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T19:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=133118"},"modified":"2025-04-07T15:28:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T19:28:21","slug":"jalen-brunson-gets-real-about-return-from-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/07\/jalen-brunson-gets-real-about-return-from-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson Gets Real About Return From Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

One month after suffering an ankle injury, New York Knicks<\/a> guard Jalen Brunson<\/a> made his return on Sunday. In a win against the Phoenix Suns<\/a>, the Villanova alum recorded 15 points on 3-for-9 shooting, six assists, two rebounds, and a steal in 34 minutes.<\/p>\n

After the game, Brunson spoke about his return and there is still “a lot of room for improvement” (subscription required<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cI could be better, could be worse,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cA lot of room for improvement on my end, obviously. I\u2019m surprised about the conditioning part. I thought that would be a lot worse, but it wasn\u2019t as bad as I thought. Mentally \u2026 just making sure I can trust myself in the things that I do. Everyone always talks about the physical part (of coming back from injury), but mentally, it\u2019s about trusting your movements, the way you play and not second-guessing yourself. That was a huge adjustment, but I\u2019m feeling a lot better.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Furthermore, head coach Tom Thibodeau made it clear the team wanted him back on the court before the start of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Jalen and (associate athletic trainer Anthony Goenaga), if there\u2019s fatigue, he\u2019ll tell us. And they\u2019re watching him pretty closely,\u201d head coach Tom Thibodeau said<\/a>. Brunson said his conditioning was better than anticipated. That\u2019s probably because he was diligent in his conditioning during rehab. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s more his timing,\u201d Thibodeau said. \u201cHe\u2019s got to play. There\u2019s no way around that. He practiced well the other day but the intensity of practice can never be replicated to what the game is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson Gets Real About Return From Injury<\/h2>\n

The New York Knicks’ Outlook<\/h3>\n

With only a few games left on the schedule, the Knicks are 50-28. Furthermore, they own the No. 3 seed in the East and are three games ahead of the Indiana Pacers in the standings. Barring a late-season collapse, the Knicks are set to finish as a top-three seed once again.<\/p>\n

When healthy, the Knicks are one of the most talented teams in the league. Statistically, they are the fifth-best offensive team in the league and have the seventh-best net rating. It remains difficult to place them ahead of teams like the Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Cleveland Cavaliers. However, the Knicks are still a great team that deserves recognition.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Knicks finished as the No. 2 seed in the East behind Boston. Despite this, they suffered a second-round playoff exit at the hands of the Pacers. This time around, the Knicks will aim for a better finish to their season.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

Brunson’s availability is crucial to the Knicks’ success. For the Knicks to make a deep playoff run this year, they will rely heavily on Brunson. However, when they are clicking, the Knicks are among the best teams in the league. It will be interesting to see if they can end the season on a high note and gain momentum heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One month after suffering an ankle injury, New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson made his return on Sunday. In a win against the Phoenix Suns, the Villanova alum recorded 15 points on 3-for-9 shooting, six assists, two rebounds, and a steal in 34 minutes. After the game, Brunson spoke about his return and there is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":131722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,62,12,3],"tags":[1417],"class_list":["post-133118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-knicks","category-news","tag-jalen-brunson"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133119,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133118\/revisions\/133119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}