Knicks PJ Tucker relishes extremely rare playing…
DETROIT — PJ Tucker didn’t know what to anticipate.
He acquired a textual content Thursday morning that he was half of the rotation for the sport in opposition to the Pistons, after which, to his shock, Tucker was the primary participant off the Knicks bench in a 115-106 loss.
By the top, Tucker had logged 27 minutes — by far a season high — whereas mixing it up bodily and scoring his first regular-season factors in precisely a yr on a trademark nook 3-pointer.
“Once I got through my first wind, it was really good,” Tucker stated. “I started to open up a little bit. I started to feel good, started talking, getting involved with the game and it’s like riding a bike.”
Tucker even closed out the close sport within the fourth quarter in a lineup with starters.
PJ Tucker shoots during the Knicks’ 115-106 loss to the Piston on
April 10, 2025. NBAE through Getty Images
Still, there’s no guarantee he’ll see the court docket again.
Josh Hart and OG Anunoby, who each rested Thursday, ought to return for Friday’s sport in opposition to the Cavaliers.
Tucker relished the possibility — and felt at home getting bodily.
“The plays like that, the box outs, the 50-50 balls, that stuff is that feeling,” Tucker stated. “Getting offensive rebounds, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m back.’ It felt good.”
The proof reveals Tom Thibodeau doesn’t truly put on down his gamers.
With Thibodeau’s status for destroying our bodies with heavy minutes because the impetus, The Guardian took a deep dive into the information beginning in 2010 (Thibodeau’s first yr as a head coach) and found “there’s no clear or consistent pattern showing Thibodeau-coached players are more likely to get hurt than anyone else.”
Tom Thibodeau reacts during the Knicks’ loss to the Pistons on April 10, 2025. IMAGN IMAGES through Reuters Connect
The graph provided with the story confirmed three of Thibodeau’s 5 seasons in Chicago correlated with a high quantity of accidents, however his subsequent years with the Timberwolves and Knicks had been both about average or more healthy than most of the NBA.
Thibodeau, who rested two starters in Thursday’s loss to the Pistons, shrugged off the findings as a result of it received’t stop the opposing view.
“I don’t worry about it because there’s always opinions,” Thibodeau stated. “Any time there’s science for it, there’s science against. And then there’s opinions. And there’s the trained eye. And there’s a lot that goes into it. I always say, you prepare for what you want to do. And you have to have a mentality and the mindset is everything. I’ve been around a lot of players and I’ve learned from them, I’ve learned from different people I’ve been around. I don’t worry about any of that stuff.”
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