Not much rust on Knicks' RJ Barrett as he returns to action
Knicks guard RJ Barrett reacts against the Pacers in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
RJ Barrett was back in action and back in the starting lineup Wednesday night at the Garden.
And if there was rust after he was forced to miss six straight games it didn’t show at the start as he buried a three-pointer to start the scoring against Indiana.
Barrett was sidelined in the opening minutes against Dallas on Dec. 27 when he suffered a lacerated right index finger. He had not missed a game until that day but the Knicks were hopeful that the two weeks off would not leave him rusty.
“You can do all the conditioning you want and he was diligent,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Get a lot of that in correctives. He was able to shoot. It was his non-shooting hand. The intensity of an NBA game is a lot different and the contact makes it a lot different as well.”
With the team fully intact for the first time in more than a month with no players unavailable Thibodeau was optimistic that they can make a run as the second half of the season begins. While Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle have been the most productive Knicks, if Barrett can return to the form of two seasons ago when he shot 40% from beyond the arc it can open things up for the team.
“I do [think he’s capable of getting back to that],” Thibodeau said. “And if you look at his numbers from the start, he started slow and then, I’d say, when he started playing with the second unit probably early December, his numbers went through the roof during that time. Across the board, [He] shot the three well, field-goal percentage way up, got to the line a ton. The last 15 games or so he played in, his numbers were really good.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
