From Peter Botte:
Julius Randle had stressed that the Knicks “definitely [had] to take advantage” of the fact NBA scoring leader Bradley Beal wasn’t playing for the Wizards on Friday night.
And Randle, a potential All-Star forward, got back on track after one of his worst offensive games of the season, finishing with 24 points and 18 rebounds to lead the Knicks to a 109-91 victory in Washington.
The win came with a price, however. Knicks starting center Mitchell Robinson fractured his right hand late in the second quarter after recording a double-double (10 points and 14 rebounds) in less than 20 minutes of playing time. He will be reevaluated Saturday in New York.
Derrick Rose contributed 14 points and six assists with four steals in 20 minutes off the bench in his second game back with the Knicks (12-15) after Sunday’s acquisition from the Pistons. Rookie Immanuel Quickley scored 16 points and Elfrid Payton finished with 12.
Hopefully this isn’t one of those bad fractured hands! It’s not like Mitch is shooting the ball, he just needs to dunk it and block shots.
I would imagine that this would mean that we’ll see more Obi Toppin, which is a silver lining in the grey cloud of Mitch’s absence!
Otherwise, it is good to beat the bad teams by a lot, but boy, there was a lot of ugly basketball in this one, so coupled with Mitch’s injury, it is hard for me to be too excited about this one (Toppin did look spry tonight, though, which was nice. Derrick Rose says that he is particularly looking for Toppin. That’s good to hear, but…uhm…why weren’t the other guards already doing that?).
The Knicks host the Rockets tomorrow night, with Victor Oladipo missing the game. Here’s hope he makes no starts at MSG this season.