The New York Knicks are sitting pretty among the top-six teams of the Eastern Conference, but an injury curveball is threatening to ruin the vibes.
The team announced on Thursday that star big man Julius Randle suffered a sprained left ankle in the previous night’s win over the Miami Heat, adding that Randle will be re-evaluated in two weeks.
The All-Star was injured in the second quarter of Wednesday's contest, when he came down on the foot of Miami big man Bam Adebayo after snagging a rebound. He managed to stay in for a subsequent pair of free throws before exiting to the locker room.
The good news for the Knicks is that their win over the seventh-seeded Heat gave them four games of clearance above the play-in tournament (with five games remaining on the schedule). It also clinched the season series over Miami, handing the Knicks the tiebreaker and making it all-but-certain that they will hold a top-six spot in the East when the dust settles.
The obvious bad news is that Randle will not even be re-evaluated until Apr. 13 and may still need additional time beyond that to ramp up for a return. The playoffs start on Apr. 15, leaving a very narrow margin for error should Randle's recovery end up a little on the slower side.
For the Knicks, who seem likely to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 4-5 first-round matchup, the concerns continue to stack up.
More must-reads: