Knicks star 'just having fun' vs. Cavaliers

After sitting out the Knicks‘ final five regular-season contests with a left ankle sprain, All-Star power forward Julius Randle has seemed downright giddy through New York’s ongoing playoff series with the Cavaliers, writes Zach Braziller of the New York Post.

“I’m just having fun, man, this is a lot of fun,” Randle said earlier this week. “This is what you work so hard for. For me it goes back to our team, all the work that we’ve put in, in the summer, individuals. That’s what this is about. So I’m excited.”

Randle enjoyed a fairly modest Game 3 against Cleveland, scoring 11 points on 3-of-15 shooting from the floor, pulling down eight rebounds, and dishing out three assists. He has not quite been up to his regular All-Star production while playing through the injury. For the series thus far, he’s averaging 16.5 PPG on 31.4% shooting, plus 8.0 RPG, 2.0 APG and 1.0 SPG.

New York leads Cleveland 2-1 thus far in the best-of-seven series, and will hope to improve that advantage when the action resumes Sunday at Madison Square Garden.

There’s more out of New York:

• The relationship between star Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson‘s father Rick, now an assistant coach on the team, and head coach Tom Thibodeau played a big role in selling Brunson on New York in free agency, as Nick Friedell of ESPN details. Thibodeau was an assistant coach under Jeff Van Gundy when Rick joined the team as a player in 1998. They developed a friendship, and Thibodeau brought the elder Brunson aboard his bench when he booked his first head-coaching gig with the Bulls in 2010. “I think being around him for a long time, knowing the trust that my dad has in him, I’ve been around it,” Brunson told Friedell. “I’ve been around his philosophies for a long time, so I guess I’m used to it. I’ve seen it from afar — he’s going to push me no matter if I have 48 [points] or four. “
• Though backup New York guard Immanuel Quickley was the runner-up behind Celtics reserve Malcolm Brogdon for this year’s Sixth Man of the Year award, Quickley is striving to look past it, writes Petter Botte of the New York Post. “There’s been a lot of, there’s been more players that have started a lot more games than me,” Quickley said. “So it’s something that I wanted to win, but at the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world. Still got a long career hopefully, God willing, ahead of me.”
• Second-year Knicks shooting guard Quentin Grimes left the first half of Friday night’s 99-79 New York win with what the team described as a shoulder contusion and did not return in the second, Botte writes in a separate piece. Across the Knicks’ first three games of the series, Grimes has been erratic on offense, scoring just 11 points on 2-of-11 shooting from the floor.