Knicks' Miles McBride Continues Making Progress in Injury Recovery

McBride has been out since late January, when the surgery took him off the floor during arguably the best stretch of his career. Before going down, he was averaging 12.9 points per game on 43.4 percent shooting from the field. When he was on the court, the Knicks looked more balanced, and his absence has quietly changed how the offense runs.

A couple of days before this footage surfaced, head coach Mike Brown told reporters that McBride was already taking contact. McBride himself has said he wants to be back before the playoffs, which begin in about a month.

Why Miles McBride Returning Before Playoffs Is Huge for the Knicks

The Mikal Bridges situation is what makes this feel more urgent than a typical injury update. Bridges has been cold for over a month now, averaging just 10.0 points per game over his last 10 outings. He has been benched in crunch time in multiple games, with Landry Shamet getting those minutes instead.

When defenses do not respect your starter's shot, they load up on Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, and that is exactly what has been happening.

But McBride only changes that math if he comes back close to the player he was before the surgery. That version of McBride coming off the bench would open up driving lanes, free up Brunson, and give the Knicks a genuine scoring option who does not need the ball in his hands to be useful.

The slow starts are the other piece. New York dug a 21-point hole against a shorthanded Warriors team before eventually pulling through. That kind of deficit is survivable in March. In the playoffs, against a team with a full rotation, it rarely is. A McBride who is sharp and in rhythm could be exactly the spark off the bench to flip those stretches early.

And if he comes back healthy and looking like himself while Bridges is still struggling, the conversation about the starting lineup becomes real. Brown has not been afraid to make tough calls this season, and the numbers would back him up.

The Knicks are the three seed in the East and still one of the better teams in the conference. A lot of that potential, though, depends on which McBride shows up, and how much time he gets to shake off the rust before it actually matters.