The Knicks don't have much incentive to rush him back. At 48-27, the team is virtually locked into the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, eight games behind the 2-seed Boston Celtics and four games clear of the 4-seed Indiana Pacers with seven games left. Barring a fairly epic collapse, New York's seed is locked

Brunson hasn’t played since spraining his ankle on March 6. He needs four more games to qualify for postseason awards. If he doesn’t play in both games of back-to-back sets (the Knicks have two more of those), a return by this weekend will get him exactly to the 65-game threshold by the season finale in Brooklyn on April 13.