Quentin Grimes didn’t have an effective night upon returning to the lineup Monday in Minnesota, but he is thankful to have missed just two games with a sore wrist sustained earlier on the Knicks’ five-game road trip.
The team’s starting shooting guard missed all six of his field-goal attempts and scored zero points with a team-worst minus-18 rating in 25 minutes in the loss to the Timberwolves.
But Grimes practiced fully Wednesday in preparation for Friday’s home game against the Heat.
“I feel good. … Just one of those games,” Grimes said after practice. “Everybody didn’t shoot the ball and make shots, and we’re kind of [on the] last game of a road trip, so everybody was a little fatigued like that, but overall it feels good.
“It’s a little sore and everything. But I got four, five days to kind of just calm back down. … I feel really good right now.”
The third-year guard left the Knicks’ win last Wednesday in Atlanta after a fourth-quarter collision with Hawks wing Bogdan Bogdanovic.
“I knew it wasn’t too bad,” Grimes said. “You usually feel a pop or something like that, but I knew it was just, like, really pain on the whole side of my hand. Couldn’t really make a fist or clench a fist or anything like that. But I got some medication and it calmed it down, so luckily it wasn’t as serious as it maybe looked.”
Josh Hart is shooting 29.5 percent from 3-point range this season after connecting on 52 percent from long distance in 25 regular-season games for the Knicks following a February trade from Portland.
“You don’t get those shots without people working together to create those shots. He’s done a good job of creating them. We don’t want him hesitating,” Tom Thibodeau said. “He’s put work in. A lot of them have gone in and out, and I believe in the end he’ll be there.
“You guys hear me say it all the time, the game tells you what to do. If you’re open, you’ve got to shoot. He’s not going to hesitate. He’s been around a long time.
There’s ebbs and flows to this. Just shoot the right shots, and the whole key is to understand the value of shots and not only taking them, but how you create them.”
Thibodeau said little-used veteran Evan Fournier also practiced after being unavailable the past two games due to an ankle issue.
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