Brunson hasn’t played since spraining his ankle on March 6. He needs four more games to qualify for postseason awards. If he doesn’t play in both games of back-to-back sets (the Knicks have two more of those), a return by this weekend will get him exactly to the 65-game threshold by the season finale in Brooklyn on April 13.

It seems like the episode was filmed toward the end of last week. A few days later, head coach Tom Thibodeau said Brunson was making "really good progress" in his recovery. After the press conference, I’d heard that the rehab process was going faster than initially anticipated. Let’s assume that there haven’t been any setbacks this week.

After averaging 24.0 points per game and finishing 12th in the NBA MVP voting in his first year in New York, Brunson was even better last season, averaging 28.7 points, 6.7 assist