Jalen Brunson returns from injury, sparks Knicks to 2-0 lead

New York Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein stated he heard the roar from the locker room.

Jalen Brunson, who had exited with a right foot injury late in the first quarter of Wednesday night’s Game 2 versus the Indiana Pacers, had returned to the Madison Square Garden floor during halftime to see if he could push through the pain.

The moment he walked through the tunnel, the crowd erupted. It was a noise so loud that Hartenstein and his teammates said they heard it from their lockers, and so intense that Brunson pleaded fans to tone things down so he could find the mental clarity necessary to test out his foot.

The MVP chants that the Knicks heard from the locker room, almost like a bat signal, suggested Brunson was back, prepared to lead the way. And indeed, Brunson’s return energized the short-handed Knicks in the second half, helping them stage a comeback and push through multiple injuries to defeat the Pacers 130-121 to take a 2-0 series lead in their conference semifinals.

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“He’s a great leader, and the players all have respect for that when a guy tries to give whatever he has. It says a lot about him,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “To me, the actions say a lot more than the words. It says that you care a lot about your team and your teammates.”

New York’s victory came with a cost as the series shifts to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4. Star defender OG Anunoby, who had a playoff career-high 28 points in his 28 minutes of work, hobbled to the locker room in the third period and didn’t return after injuring his left hamstring. Thibodeau stated he’d yet to speak with the team’s medical staff to get a sense about the seriousness of Anunoby’s injury.

The Knicks’ health struggles provided openings for Indiana, and the Pacers initially took advantage of New York’s inability to generate offense without Brunson. Powered by Tyrese Haliburton’s bounce-back performance after a sluggish Game 1 and TJ McConnell’s sound playmaking, Indiana dominated the final 15 minutes of the first half, going on a crowd-quieting 56-39 run during Brunson’s time in the locker room. The Pacers led 73-63 at the half.

But then, 54 years to the day that Willis Reed electrified the Garden by hobbling out of the tunnel just before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals, Brunson tested out the foot. Doing so prompted the roar heard all the way back inside the Knicks’ locker room.

“It was really cool, but I just knew I had to get my mind in the right place to figure out how I was going to attack in the second half,” Brunson said of the MVP chants fans greeted him with.

“He’s a warrior,” said Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo, who finished with 28 points. “There was no doubt in my mind he’d be back.”

Brunson’s presence — and the Pacers attempts to trap him — turned the tide of the game almost instantly.

Within the first five and a half minutes of the second half, New York had already generated a 15-point swing to take a five-point lead.

Like Game 1, it was a back-and-forth affair that wasn’t without controversy. With the Knicks up 124-118, the Pacers pressured Hartenstein in the backcourt with just over a minute remaining. An official signaled that he was calling Hartenstein for a double-dribble, which would have given possession to the Pacers. But then, moments later, the referees huddled and instead ruled it was an inadvertent whistle, giving the ball back to the Knicks.

It wasn’t long after that Pacers coach Rick Carlisle was issued two technical fouls and ejected.

The decision to erase the initial double-dribble call came one game after the Pacers were disadvantaged by an errant kicked ball violation. In the final minute of Game 1, with the score knotted at 115, Indiana’s Aaron Nesmith tipped a pass with his hand before a referee blew a whistle to stop what could have turned into a Pacers fastbreak.

When Carlisle and the Pacers complained late in Game 1, they were told the play — a violation as opposed to a foul or an out-of-bounds call — wasn’t reviewable.

Still, Indiana had its opportunities throughout Game 2, particularly with Haliburton (34 points, nine assists) looking more like himself, a slowed Brunson (29 points) finally looking mortal after a historic four-game run and Anunoby being forced to leave the game in the third.

Anunoby appeared to plant his leg awkwardly during a transition layup, and Brunson was forced to commit a foul in order to stop play and get a substitution for him.

It was the latest ailment for a New York club that has dealt with them all season. One day before the Game 2 victory, backup center Mitchell Robinson had been ruled out six to eight weeks with an ankle injury, likely ending his postseason.

That came one week after wing Bojan Bogdanovic had been ruled out for the rest of the campaign due to wrist and foot surgeries. And the team had already lost two-time All-NBA forward Julius Randle for the year after he dislocated his shoulder back in late January.

With his team shorthanded, Thibodeau was forced to play his starters massive minutes in recent weeks. Tuesday marked the fourth time Josh Hart (19 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists) has played all 48 minutes of a game this postseason, making him the first player since the Thibodeau-coached Jimmy Butler in 2013 to do so.

In Anunoby’s case, he had averaged 46 minutes in the four games before Tuesday, the most he’d ever averaged over a four-game span in his career, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

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