The New York Knicks have started off their season against four teams expected to make the playoffs and have gone 2-2 so far. Not too bad. Even more impressive has been the play of rookie Kristaps Porzingis, who had the best game of his young career on Monday night against the San Antonio Spurs, scoring 13 points and adding 14 rebounds. At the end of that game, though, Porzingis suffered a scary injury to his neck that looked like it could have been bad, but it apparently was not as bad as it could have been, according to Steve Popper of NorthJersey.com.
Porzingis was in the paint battling for a rebound in the third quarter of the game when he went to the floor and Carmelo Anthony landed on him. Anthony was going up for a shot and had his legs taken out from under him which led to his falling on Porzingis' neck. The 7-foot-3 Latvian stayed down for a little while and seemed like he was in serious pain, but he eventually got up and underwent X-rays that revealed no damage to his neck.
"He fell on my neck and I just, I don't know, got to ask the doctor what it's called, what happened, I had some stiffness in my neck," said Porzingis. "It doesn't feel too good. It's nothing serious. I think it'll be fine soon. At that moment, just a lot of pain in my neck. That was all, thinking about that. I was just laying on the floor in a lot of pain. I couldn't really move my neck at that point. With time it got a little better."
Porzingis was officially diagnosed with a strained neck, and the X-Rays showed nothing more than a soft tissue injury. As of now, it is unknown how much time, if any, Porzingis will miss with this injury, but he doesn't seem to think it will be much. The Knicks next game is Wednesday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that may be pushing it, as Porzingis said he was in a lot of pain, but he shouldn't miss too much more time than that.
It's big for the Knicks that Porzingis won't miss time because of his development but also because he has played well through four games. Porzingis is second on the team in scoring (11.8 ppg) and first in both rebounding (8.3 rpg) and steals (1.8 spg). If Porzingis were to miss any time, Kyle O'Quinn and Derrick Williams would likely help fill the void, and both of them are off to great starts to the season as well.
