{"id":539096,"date":"2026-01-15T20:38:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/539096\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:38:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:38:22","slug":"knicks-jalen-brunson-injures-right-ankle-for-the-3rd-time-in-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/539096\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks’ Jalen Brunson injures right ankle for the 3rd time in a year"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 Knicks<\/a> star Jalen Brunson<\/a> left Sacramento\u2019s Golden 1 Center without crutches and under his own power after sustaining a right ankle injury five minutes into the team\u2019s 112-101 loss to the Kings on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

At the 7:01 mark of the first quarter, Brunson attempted to shoot a side-step three against Sacramento\u2019s Maxime Reynaud but rolled his right foot on the move and immediately collapsed to the ground and grabbed his ankle. After limping around for one possession, he exited the game and went straight to the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, we didn\u2019t know what happened until halftime. We didn\u2019t know what was happening. I feel like the first time we saw that it could be a little something was when the second quarter started and he wasn\u2019t starting,\u201d said Karl-Anthony Towns. \u201cSo the game was playing itself out, and we didn\u2019t get a chance to emotionally react. But we came in at halftime understanding, seeing him, we understood what needed to transpire and what we needed to do. It was a next man up situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson has now injured his right ankle three times in the last calendar year. He missed 15 games with an ankle sprain sustained last March, then turned the same ankle again against the Orlando Magic in November, though that injury only cost him two games.<\/p>\n

The Knicks ruled Brunson as questionable shortly after his injury, then downgraded him to out for the game at halftime, with his status in question for the second leg of the Knicks\u2019 road back-to-back against the Golden State Warriors on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Knicks went on to fall behind by as many as 25 points in their most lifeless \u2014 or \u201clackadaisical,\u201d as Towns put it \u2014 performance of Mike Brown\u2019s first season as Knicks head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t respond [to Jalen\u2019s injury]. We didn\u2019t respond at all. I got to give the Kings credit because they took it to us,\u201d said Brown. \u201cAnd we didn\u2019t respond in any way shape or form. But even before Jalen got hurt we weren\u2019t following the game plan. And I\u2019m not sure why. But we were kind of just out there just going through the motions. And if you go through the motions in this league, it doesn\u2019t matter. You\u2019re going to get your behind kicked. And we got our behind kicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks\u2019 offense had already gone stagnant in the weeks coming out of their NBA Cup victory over the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>. Wednesday, when Brunson left, marked one of the team\u2019s most isolation-heavy performances, a game where the Knicks touched the paint regularly but failed to generate the spray threes Brown has clamored for since taking the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t asked the guys [about playing too much hero ball], but I kind of told them what I saw,\u201d said Brown. \u201cBut we had plenty of opportunities to play off of two feet and spray it. We just didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson is averaging 28.2 points on 48% shooting this season in Brown\u2019s new offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always talk about next man up. It doesn\u2019t matter. Our defense was embarrassing,\u201d said Josh Hart. \u201cOur effort was embarrassing. It didn\u2019t matter who was out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 Knicks star Jalen Brunson left Sacramento\u2019s Golden 1 Center without crutches and under his own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[1577,7,288,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-539096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-ankle-injury","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-jalen-brunson","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115901045477703807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}