Knicks start Deuce McBride, get Josh Hart back for Celtics
New York Knicks guard Josh Hart reacts against the Boston Celtics in the first half at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
When Mike Brown spoke of the Knicks being a work in progress, he wasn’t just speaking in cliches.
After an impressive opening night victory over the Cavaliers, Brown shuffled the starting lineup for Friday night's game against the Celtics at Madison Square Garden. One game after insisting that he wanted to keep Karl-Anthony Towns at power forward, he shifted him back to center and gave Deuce McBride a start alongside Towns, Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby.
And this came on a night when Josh Hart surprisingly was activated after being sidelined for nearly a month since suffering lumbar spasms seven minutes into the first preseason game. Still, even though Hart started until the final games of the 2024-25 postseason, Brown inserted McBride, going with the lineup that finished the opening night win.
“Everybody on the floor shoots it at a pretty high level and range,” Brown said. “Everybody on the floor can go make a play for themselves and their teammates. They all have to be guarded. And then defensively a lot of interchangeable parts, guys that are used to guarding the ball. They are quick, and all that. It gives your opponent a different look than a traditional big lineup.”
The lineup is one that the Knicks employed at times last season, but when Hart went to the second unit during the postseason, then-coach Tom Thibodeau put Mitchell Robinson in the starting lineup in his place. Brown had planned a similar lineup, but Robinson has yet to play as the Knicks manage his surgically repaired left ankle. He will accompany the team on the upcoming three-game road trip and could see action.
McBride, who had 15 points off the bench in the opening game, fits the style that Brown is preaching with the ability to utilize his speed and athleticism on both ends of the floor. He shot 4-for-6 from beyond the arc in the opener, including a number of key buckets, and he has the ability to space the floor in a way that Hart wouldn’t and Robinson can’t.
“I think the best thing I’ve noticed about him is his confidence is growing regardless of what the situation is,” Brunson said after the opening night win. “He’s never that hesitant. He’s gonna attack something, and if he messes up, he messes up, and he’s gonna come back and be aggressive the next time, too. So there’s a lot of confidence in that aspect, which is great, because you want to have short-term memory as a player, positive or negative.”
The Knicks utilized 11 players in the opener, but the return of Hart is a good sign — other than for the players who slipped into the rotation because of his absence.
“It's one of those things where I'm progressively getting better and starting to take contact and so, yeah, here I am,” Hart said before the game. “[It’s been] frustrating. It was something I wanted to be back Wednesday. That was the plan, but my body didn't respond how I wanted it to. We're here today. We're gonna try to give it a go and see how I feel.”
Since that Oct. 2 injury, when he grabbed a rebound, turned to rush the ball upcourt and went down in pain with no contact, he has worked on his own, carefully trying to manage the problem. He tried last week to take contact, but it did not respond well. Now he's hopeful that he is past the problems.
“It's tough cause you don't really know how it'll respond until you put it to the test,” he said. “I tried to put it to the test a little bit last week and it just wasn't there. So now we're here. During the season, it's always tough to really go through a lot of testing cause you're not doing too much crazy live practices. This will be a good test for it.”
Even if the back holds up, he still has a large splint on his ring finger on his shooting hand, a problem that he believes won’t be resolved until next summer and another surgical procedure.
“My finger's still messed up,” Hart said. “It's still chopped. It kind of just is what it is at this point. Down the line, hopefully this offseason, I'll get it fixed, but until then, we're just gonna rock with it. The splint's my best friend.”
As far as Robinson is concerned, the Knicks have insisted that there has been no new injury or problem even as he has been shut down for two weeks. He played 13 minutes in the third preseason game, all in the first half, and did not join the rest of the starters on the floor to start the second half. He has not played in a game or fully practiced since that day.
The Knicks have pointed to last season’s decision to sit him the first 58 games of the season to be certain that he would not have a problem with the ankle, which was surgically repaired in December 2023 and again in May 2024.
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.
