Phoenix Suns PG Brandon Knight ruled out vs. Minnesota, return uncertain
Mar 10, 2015, 10:59 PM | Updated: 11:04 pm
PHOENIX — The move was a good one. He just didn’t stick the landing.
Phoenix Suns point guard Brandon Knight will miss at least one game — Wednesday’s contest vs. Minnesota — and perhaps a few more after he suffered a sprained left ankle late in the second quarter in the loss to Golden State Monday night.
Freeing himself from Stephen Curry with a behind-the-back dribble, Knight drove towards the basket and floated up a lob to Alex Len. After the pass, Knight got hit by Draymond Green, causing him to land awkwardly on the ankle.
“I think I just got bumped while I was coming down and I just came down on the side of my feet,” said Knight, who did not get the foul call.
At first glance, the injury appeared serious as Knight immediately grabbed his leg and starting writhing in pain before eventually being helped off the court and back to the locker room.
“It hurt,” he said. “Normally when you do stuff like this you can kind of walk off or limp off, but I couldn’t do that yesterday.”
His ankle in a brace — an aircast for added protection — Knight headed towards his car with the aid of crutches as he spoke with reporters.
“You never know, sometimes these things go quick, sometimes they take a while. I don’t want to put a timetable on it,” he said. “I just want to just keep working on it every day and see where we end up.”
Of course the timing of the injury couldn’t be worse.
With 17 games remaining, the Suns sit three games behind Oklahoma City for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
“You never want to be injured,” said Knight, a restricted free agent at the end of the season. “Whether it’s the beginning of the season, no matter when it is, you don’t want to be injured, so like I said it’s just about getting better.”
Acquired from Milwaukee just prior to the Feb. 19 trade deadline, Knight was 10 games into his Suns career, scoring in double figures in each of the past five, including 13 points in 14 minutes against the Warriors.
“Finally was figuring it out how we were going play; and like I said, that’s going to take time,” he said. “It’s not going to be perfect right away, but I was finally figuring that out and hopefully once I do come back we continue to work on that and myself continue to work on fitting in and stuff like that.”
With Knight sidelined, the Suns plan to add another point guard. They’ll sign Seth Curry, Stephen’s younger brother, out of the NBA D-League to a 10-day contract, a move that will become official Wednesday.
In 36 games, all starts, with the Erie BayHawks, Curry was averaging 23.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists while shooting 48 percent from the field and 48.2 percent from three-point range.
“Just like anything else, we’re looking for guys that can give us some consistent effort at that spot,” Hornacek said. “Obviously, right now Archie (Goodwin) will have to play some point guard again. I thought he did a decent job last night of kind of seeing the situation out there. He made a couple of nice passes to guys and got us some buckets. We’ll probably use him in that role. We might have to play P.J. (Tucker) at some 2 so we can get T.J. (Warren) in there at the 3-spot.
“Next guy up, I guess.”
Though disappointed he can’t be in uniform, Knight chose a positive view towards the injury, looking at the crutches as a way to build strength in his arms.
“That’ll be the thing,” he said, smiling. “You guys will see me with some big biceps and triceps when I come back.”
