{"id":12173,"date":"2022-01-19T01:17:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T01:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/2022\/01\/19\/kemba-walker-returns-to-knicks-starting-lineup\/"},"modified":"2022-01-19T01:17:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T01:17:00","slug":"kemba-walker-returns-to-knicks-starting-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/kemba-walker-returns-to-knicks-starting-lineup\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemba Walker returns to Knicks&#8217; starting lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Kemba Walker is back from his second nine-game respite this season, even though this shutdown was due to a sore knee \u2013 unlike the benching that the Bronx native endured in December.<\/p>\n<p>Walker participated in pregame warm-ups and was pronounced fit to play \u2014 and in the starting lineup \u2014 for Tuesday\u2019s game against the Timberwolves at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust get out there and give us what you have. He\u2019s been out a while, so we\u2019ll see where he is,\u201d Tom Thibodeau said when asked before the game what he expected out of the 31-year-old Walker in his first appearance since Dec. 29 in Detroit. \u201cHis conditioning is not going to be what it normally is, so the first few games we\u2019ll just see where he\u2019s at.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe actually have good depth right now, so we\u2019ll just go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A key component of that emerging depth recently has been provided by first-round draft pick Quentin Grimes, who averaged 20.2 minutes over the latest nine games Walker missed. \u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption>Kemba Walker hasn\u2019t suited up for the Knicks since Dec. 29.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Walker\u2019s return figured to shift some point-guard minutes away from Alec Burks and Immanuel Quickley, perhaps affecting Grimes\u2019 playing time. That duo mostly had shared those on-the-ball duties during the four-time All-Star\u2019s absence, especially with Derrick Rose (ankle) also sidelined.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks also remained without imported wing Cam Reddish (ankle) for a third straight game since he was acquired last week from the Hawks. His additional availability eventually will result in a further glut of wing players for Thibodeau to choose from, led by starters R.J. Barrett and Evan Fournier.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kemba Walker is back from his second nine-game respite this season, even though this shutdown was due to a sore knee \u2013 unlike the benching that the Bronx native endured in December. Walker participated in pregame warm-ups and was pronounced fit to play \u2014 and in the starting lineup \u2014 for Tuesday\u2019s game against the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[920,215,200,801,750,921],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12175,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12173\/revisions\/12175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}