SAN FRANCISCO — Jalen Brunson’s troublesome right ankle cost him a high-profile showdown.
The point guard was ruled out of Thursday night’s game against Stephen Curry and the Warriors with a sprain, which Brunson sustained a day earlier in the first quarter of an embarrassing Knicks defeat at Sacramento.
He was labeled “day to day” by the Knicks, which is a good sign that the injury wasn’t severe.
Still, Brunson had already missed two games this season because of a right ankle sprain — after missing 15 toward the end of last season for the same reason — prompting questions about what the recurrences might mean for his ankle’s long-term stability.
All it takes is one bad turn in the playoffs for the Knicks to be in trouble.
“The inverse ankle sprains are really common. And, unfortunately, they beget themselves,” Dr. Stephanie Gwin, a non-operative sports medicine physician at Rothman Orthopaedics, told The Post. “The more you sprain, the more unstable it is, the more you keep spraining. So my guess is with this, even if it is a lower-grade sprain, they may err towards giving that a little bit longer so they can have him for the postseason.”
Gwin neither treated nor examined Brunson, but she noticed the point guard moving well enough after the injury to assume it wasn’t a bad sprain. Brunson, who hasn’t spoken to the media since sustaining the ankle sprain, left the Kings’ arena Wednesday with slight limp but with neither crutches nor a walking boot.
“Typically, ankle sprains are graded 1 through 3. I know earlier in the season he was only out a week, which would be consistent with a grade 1,” Gwin said. “When you’re getting towards a month [like his sprain last season], that’s usually a grade 2, in which case there could be a partial tear of the ligament there.
“Watching the video, he was able to walk off the court, he was able to weight bear and all those things. So presumably, this looks like another low-grade sprain like the one he had earlier in the season. The biggest concern is that he’s had two in one season following a bigger one before.”
Brunson’s latest sprain was unlike the others. He simply planted his right foot while dribbling when his ankle gave out, sending Brunson to the locker room for the remainder of the 112-101 defeat to the Kings.
Gwin suggested Brunson work on “retraining” his ankle with the help of the Knicks staff.
“The mainstay of treatment is immobilize it, rehab it, working up the chain to knee and hip strength because that also helps control the ankle,” Gwin said. “Occasionally now for athletes, you will do regenerative things like a PRP injection. The evidence is a little mixed on how much that can help. But there’s really little downside other than a little discomfort from the injection, a little downtime following the injection.”
Regarding the future of Brunson’s right ankle, the only given is that the Knicks are much better off when the point guard is healthy and able to dissect defenses with his hard cuts and pivots. Since Brunson signed in 2022, the Knicks entered Thursday with an 18-19 record in games he didn’t play. They’re 155-94 when Brunson plays.
They need him and his right ankle healthy for when the games matter most. Wednesday’s loss — with Brunson playing only five minutes before the injury — was another reminder.
“I’d be disappointed in myself and the rest of the team,” coach Mike Brown said. “It was sad, but we didn’t play the way we were capable of playing. When you do that, you’re going to get your behinds kicked, and we got our behinds kicked.”