Brunson was injured by tripping over himself, and now his stumbling Knicks have to get up again

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GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — With nine losses in 11 games, the New York Knicks are falling all over themselves.

Really, they are. That’s how Jalen Brunson said he sprained his right ankle last week.

“It’s embarrassing to say versus watching, so it’s tripping over my own two damn, or one foot, whatever,” Brunson said Tuesday. “And yeah, it’s that simple.”

Brunson was hurt last Wednesday early in a loss at Sacramento when it appeared his ankle gave out while he was dribbling and he fell to the court. He sat out two losses and things got worse when he returned Monday, as the Knicks trailed by 30 points at home in the first half against the Dallas Mavericks in a 114-97 loss.

Josh Hart also returned Monday after he sat out the previous game with soreness in his ankle that had recently sidelined him. He was originally injured on Christmas when he stepped on a Cleveland player's foot during a fast break — a much different way than Brunson was hurt.

“It just (goes) to the unathletic claims for him,” Hart said. “I sprained my ankle because I landed on somebody. He was out two games because he tripped over himself.”

Hart rarely passes on a chance to poke fun at his friend and former Villanova teammate, but this is no time for humor for the Knicks.

The Knicks were booed repeatedly Monday and have lost four in row entering their game Wednesday at home against Brooklyn. They have fallen to 25-18 after they started 23-9 and won the NBA Cup last month.

“We’re not a bad team by any means,” Hart said. “But we’re falling into bad habits and we've got to fix that.”

Their string of losses began only at the end of December, but the Knicks seem to believe some of those bad habits started after they won the Cup in Las Vegas a couple of weeks earlier. Getting to and then winning the final essentially added another West road trip to their schedule.

“After that, we hit a few road bumps, but it started trending the other way. And now it’s at a point where it’s trending the other way win-loss wise pretty bad,” coach Mike Brown said.

“But all the guys in the locker room are competitive. So it’s hard for me or anybody to say, ‘Hey, you know, we don’t want to win.’ That’s just not going to happen. So we’re going to play every game to win, and if we go play every game to win, that’s the result of it. There’s no time off, it is what it is, and we’ve got to figure it out. And I don’t think there’s — I know starting with me — I don’t know if there’s anybody in that room that’s been in this situation before. And so we all have to try to collectively figure out how we’re going to get back on track.”

Brunson, who missed 15 games late last season when he sprained the same ankle, said he will continue getting treatment to get his ankle back to full strength. And he thinks the Knicks will recover, too.

“Struggles happen,” he said. “So we’ve got to get ourselves out of the funk.”

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