Knicks' Josh Hart misses game for first time this season with sore left knee
Knicks guard Josh Hart, center, looks on from the bench in the first half of an NBA game against the Wizards at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Is Josh Hart’s body starting to show the strain of playing too much basketball?
Shortly after Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau announced that Hart would be sitting out Thursday’s game against Washington at the Garden with a sore left knee, the swingman told reporters that the shorter summer, thanks to the Knicks' playoff run and playing on the U.S. National team, is having an impact on his body.
“This is my seventh year and every year before I was on vacation April 13,” said Hart, who had never been to the postseason before being traded to the Knicks last season. “FIBA [World Cup] was six weeks of basketball. That’s 2 1/2 months of playing basketball that my body normally has to recover and strengthen.
“This year is going to be a consistent battle of trying to have maintenance and just get me through.”
Thursday night’s game was the first Hart has missed this season. Previously, he was one of only four Knicks to appear in every game, alongside Donte DiVincenzo, Isaiah Hartenstein and Julius Randle.
Hart is listed as day-to-day with what he and Thibodeau describe as soreness, while the Knicks have officially listed it as patellar tendinopathy. It is unclear whether he will be available for Saturday’s game against Toronto and his former teammates, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley.
Hart also was on the Knicks' injury report for Wednesday’s game against the Houston Rockets. He ended up not only playing but scoring 10 points and hauling down 14 rebounds in a 109-94 victory.
Still, Hart has struggled at times this season, and his numbers are nowhere like what they were after the Knicks acquired him last February from the Trail Blazers.
In 25 games with the Knicks last season, Hart shot a remarkable 51.9% from three-point range. This season, he is shooting 31.9% (34-for-112), which includes going 3-for-19 in his previous seven games.
From last season to this one, Hart’s averages also are down in rebounds (7.0 to 6.4), assists (3.6 to 2.7), steals (1.4 to 0.8) and overall field-goal percentage (.586 to .440).
"At the end of the day, I just gotta play better, regardless of the stuff that I can't control,” Hart said Wednesday night when asked if the knee had been impacting his play. "It's something that I've struggled with this year and haven't been able to put good games together. I gotta find a way to bring that energy every night, on a daily basis."
Thibodeau is not concerned about Hart’s dip in statistics, noting that his 6.7 net rating is third on the team behind only OG Anunoby and Hartenstein.
“I’m not worried about his shooting. I know that’s gonna come around,” Thibodeau said. “Help us in all the ways that you help us: rebounding the ball, pushing the ball on the break, hustling, getting deflections, guarding multiple positions. Those are some types of things that are hard to measure but it brings great value to your team. And that’s really why he’s here.”
Hart obviously is a part of the team’s long-term plan, having signed an $81 million contract extension in August. He said he has dealt with knee soreness in previous years and that it just seems to be flaring up sooner because of the amount of basketball he’s played.
“Yeah, I think I know how to manage it pretty well,” he said. “Sometimes the frustrating part is trying to balance the rest and getting up extra shots and work. You don’t want to feel like you’re getting out of rhythm, but you don’t want to put your body through too much. There’s a constant battle with that. But I think I have a pretty good feel of how to manage it during the season.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
