Kristaps Porzingis is listed as day-to-day with a bruised lower left leg.
“I can tell you nothing about the severity. I knew he had a bruised leg, lower leg,” interim coach Kurt Rambis said after the Knicks beat the Pistons, 102-89, at the Garden on Saturday, when Porzingis sat out for only the second time all season.
“When he went out to work out after getting some treatment earlier this morning then came in and got more treatment, he was having trouble pushing off on it. Our medical staff determined he wasn’t prepared to play.
“X-rays were negative, and he is going to be listed as day-to-day. The medical staff feels he will heal up in a day or two. I guess that’s what happens when you’re 20. They feel very confident it won’t be a lingering thing.”
Porzingis missed the Jan. 28 game in Toronto with an upper respiratory infection.
Pistons president/GM Stan Van Gundy admitted surprise over the firing of Derek Fisher by the Knicks — or at least the timing.
“Most of the coaching changes surprise me to some degree. You don’t know what’s going on on the inside,” Van Gundy said. “But the team had improved a great deal from a year ago, so yeah, I was a little bit surprised.”
Perhaps the biggest cause of the moment for many Knick fans — when they’re not crusading for fourth-quarter playing time for Porzingis — is playing time for rookie point guard Jerian Grant. Rambis broached that subject.
“Some of it just has to do with having a three-guard rotation right now,” Rambis said noting Jose Calderon is playing well again, Arron Afflalo is a rotation regular and Langston Galloway is a fixture. “We gave Jerian a little shot [Friday], and it didn’t work out well for him. But that’s just part of experience.”
Grant played nearly 17 minutes Saturday and had three points and two assists.
“Someone asked me a while ago, ‘Is there going to be a point in the season where you just go, “We’re going to play the young guys?” ’ ” Rambis said. “I’m not there yet. If management tells me at some point that we’re there and they want to make that change, then that’s something that I’ll defer to them. As a coach, I’m not there yet. So I’m going to go with the guys that I trust and have the experience right now.”
With Carmelo Anthony (24), Robin Lopez (21) and Afflalo (20), the Knicks had three 20-point scorers for the first time this season.
Anthony said he thinks Porzingis should play for his national team this summer.
“I think he should take that challenge and represent his country,” Anthony said.
Porzingis has followed a season-long pattern of decreased minutes in the fourth quarter. Nowhere was it more noticeable than in Boston on Friday when the 7-foot-3 rookie sat the final 9:37, playing a total of just 20:14.
“It’s been tough because a lot of times we’ve gone small, so he’s either going to be at the five-spot and it’s matchups. It’s situations whether he has the experience to be out there at [center], the execution offensively and knowing what we want from him,” Rambis said of his using Porzingis at center. “Sometimes, because he’s a natural floor spacer, we need him more inside whenever he’s that [center], rolling in pick-and-roll situations. Otherwise we end up just settling for a bunch of outside shots.
“That happened [Friday], where in the fourth quarter, they had no fouls against them because we weren’t attacking the basket, and we were settling for jump shots. And I’ve got to get a comfort level with him being able to guard different [smaller] people.”
Rambis said no decision had been made on whether Cleanthony Early would fly Sunday with the team for the upcoming road trip. He still was undergoing tests. Early was shot in the right knee during a December robbery outside a Queens strip club.