The Knicks won’t have Baron Davis for today’s matinee against the Magic at the Garden, and likely will be without Carmelo Anthony, as well.
But, at least in Davis’ case, his long-awaited debut continues to creep ever closer, with Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni saying yesterday Davis remains on schedule to return to the lineup around the end of the month.
“I don’t know about this week, but next week, yes,” D’Antoni said. “He’s still on schedule. If that’s the third of February, the fifth, or that’s the 28 of January, we don’t know, depending on setbacks and all of that.
“But towards the end of January we should really be close.”
Since the Knicks signed Davis last month after the Cavaliers released him — using the amnesty clause in the new collective bargaining agreement — the team has targeted sometime around the end of the month as the time when it expected to insert Davis into the starting lineup.
Davis told The Post after Saturday’s 104-92 loss to the Thunder in Oklahoma City that he continues to make strides and improvement toward recovering from the herniated disc in his back. He is expected to begin some running drills this week, with clearance to participate in full contact practices to come after that, assuming there are no setbacks.
“I don’t know how he feels exactly,” D’Antoni said, “but the best-case scenario is next week he starts getting into contact … that’s the best-case scenario.”
While the possibility of Davis returning to the lineup engendered optimism, Anthony’s status was still a cause for concern. After sitting out the second half of Thursday’s loss in Memphis and all of Saturday’s loss in Oklahoma City with a sprained right ankle, Anthony spent most of the day yesterday at the Knicks’ practice facility receiving treatment.
Anthony said he’d run in a pool, but hadn’t tested the ankle yet running on the court, and wasn’t overly optimistic about making it back for this afternoon’s game against Dwight Howard and the Magic.
“It felt good in the water,” Anthony said. “You’re not using all of your body weight in the pool, so it felt good. But I’m going to go test it out right now on the court, and maybe a little more tonight and early in the morning, and we’ll see what happens.”
After watching his teammates get rocked against the Grizzlies and Thunder while he sat and watched, Anthony is desperate to get back out on the court.
“I think watching [Saturday’s] game really helped,” Anthony said. “It really pushed me to get back out there on the court, pushed me to get healthy. We got in late last night, I came here early this morning and I’m still here, so I’m doing my best to try to get back out there on the basketball court.”
One thing that being injured has allowed Anthony to do is sit back and watch the way the rest of his teammates are playing. In doing so, he identified at least one problem with the way the Knicks are playing.
“We’re not playing with a high-level of confidence right now, and we need to get back to that, and get back to having fun and playing basketball,” he said.
“Basketball is fun at the end of the day, and even when we’re out there and we have a lead, it doesn’t look like we’re having fun. I want everyone to get back to having fun again.”