CLEVELAND — Jalen Brunson acknowledged the “terrible timing” of Julius Randle’s injury, but the point guard — along with teammate RJ Barrett — are confident the roster can handle the absence of the All-Star.
For Barrett, it’s a belief rooted in the roster’s improvement from last season, specifically the addition of Brunson and the uptick in scoring from Immanuel Quickley.
“One hundred percent,” Barrett said. “I think it could be anybody’s night. The way I come in looking at it, I want to make the right plays, whether I’m scoring, facilitating, playing defense. Whenever one guy goes down, we always step up to focus. I think it takes more focus especially being down an All-Star. But I’m very confident in our team and how we can handle things.”
Still, a life without Randle for at least the final five games of the regular season — and possibly into the playoffs — brings questions and challenges. Evidence points to Obi Toppin getting his first start of the season Friday in Cleveland, and stylistically he’s a much different player than Randle.
As a cutter and spot-up shooter, Toppin won’t play as many minutes or command the ball as much as Randle. The halfcourt game suffers but there might be greater possibilities to run in transition. Then there’s the question of who plays power forward when Toppin is off the court.
Against Miami on Wednesday, the Knicks went small with Barrett and Josh Hart as the forwards. There’s potent speedball potential with that group but also being undersized isn’t the Tom Thibodeau way.
“I think with [Randle] being out we’ve got to kind of figure that out collectively, especially with who plays the four when Obi subs out,” Barrett said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Randle, who turned his ankle in the first half of Wednesday’s game, didn’t travel with the Knicks to Cleveland. Heading into Friday, the Knicks were 6-7 without Randle since he joined the team in 2019.
“I texted him. His spirits are high, I think,” Brunson said. “Like I’ve said before, he’s a fighter and he’s gonna try to get back as healthy as he can, as fast as he can. He’s a warrior. You know how he is with his expressions. He’s very straight-faced and monotone, but he’s a great teammate, great guy to be around. So he’ll be back.
“We feel for our guy,” Brunson added. “He’s been in pretty much every game all year. It’s terrible timing, but life always throws us curveballs.”
Brunson banged up too
The point guard is still managing recent injuries to his foot and hand.
Brunson, who missed seven games in March, had his hand wrapped in ice after Friday morning’s shootaround and, for the first time, explained how the injury occurred on March 22 in Miami.
“I jammed it,” he said. “It just swelled up and I had to do everything I can to get it down and less painful.”
Brunson added that all tests were negative. He’s also doing maintenance on the sore foot that kept the 26-year-old out of five games near the beginning of March.
“It feels better,” he said. “I do still have to just kinda keep it going.”
