The eight simple words that gave Knicks fans reason to hope again
NY Post
They are eight simple words, but for Knicks fans who still choose to believe that things can break in their favor before the end of the season, they were eight of the most hopeful words available in the local basketball lexicon.
“I’m cleared for basketball activities,” Jalen Brunson said late Sunday afternoon, “whatever that means.”
Here’s what it mostly means: There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is comfort in knowing that Brunson, the team’s most essential player in addition to its most valuable, is ramping up in the gym at the Knicks’ Westchester facility, that as we near the calendar flipping from March to April and the playoffs come into clear view, Brunson will soon be a part of the proceedings again.
It isn’t as if the Knicks have fallen to pieces in Brunson’s absence. Following Sunday’s rollicking 110-93 win over the Blazers at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks have played 12 games without Brunson and won seven of them. They have lost no ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race and still have comfortable leads over the three teams with the best chance to catch them for the No. 3 seed — Indiana, Detroit, Milwaukee — and take a magic number of four out of the Portland game.
The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game Monday night.
PORT ST. LUCIE — For now, Craig Kimbrel is choosing Mets purgatory.
‘Freak of nature: Zion Williamson’s resurgence could pose a Knicks problem versus motivated Pelicans
Zion Williamson is slimmer and healthier for his trip to MSG.
Don’t blame Mikal Bridges for his paltry stats. Blame the role.
Almost a year to the day after a goaltender interference call against Kyle Palmieri lost the Islanders a game against the Blue Jackets that started their season’s death spiral, they were on the wrong end of another controversial call against those same Blue Jackets that might have had the same effect.
On the Queens side of town, the reno began in earnest almost as soon as Francisco Lindor grounded into the 4-6-3 double play. That ended a 4-0 loss before a rare sizable crowd at Miami’s loanDepot Park last Sept. 27, all of them there to witness the final death rattles of an epic baseball calamity.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is being paid handsomely for his breakout season.
Next comes the harder part. Mostly because it can’t get any easier.
It was Kids Day at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, but for the Rangers, it’s been All About The Kids for months.
PORT ST. LUCIE — From the moment he was told he needed surgery on his left hamate bone, Francisco Lindor fixated on the recovery time. Trainers provided the Mets shortstop a six-week pathway to return to play, and Lindor was determined to hit every marker.
Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season and playoffs, he’d logged over 160 games with AHL Hartford, and he was right. Before the Rangers recalled him Friday, Garand had served as the Wolf Pack’s goaltender 165 times.
SAN DIEGO — As you may have seen elsewhere in this newspaper (and also if you haven’t deleted me yet from your social media), I have a book coming out Tuesday called “The Bosses of The Bronx.” Much of it details the 37 years’ worth of antics, winning, losing, winning again and overall mania of George Steinbrenner’s time with the Yankees.
Don’t close the curtain on “Mean” Joe Greene.