Hart admits to nerve issue after breakout game

NEW YORK -- After Josh Hart had what easily was his best game of the season thus far for the Knicks -- scoring 14 points to go with 9 rebounds and 3 assists -- in a 128-113 New York win over the Chicago Bulls on Sunday night, the do-it-all forward admitted there's one thing he can't do at the moment:

Get full feeling in his right (shooting) hand.

"Yeah, my nerve hasn't fully gotten back to what it was before," Hart said at his locker after the game. "So it's a little bit of tingling, a little bit of numbness in part of my hand.

"Hopefully, at some point, that nerve will get back to where it was. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but right now it's a process."

It's a process that has caused Hart to get off to an extremely slow start to this season for the Knicks (3-3). After missing the first game of the season with a back issue -- one that caused him to miss the final few weeks of preseason after a brief cameo in New York's exhibition opener in Abu Dhabi -- Hart scored a combined 11 points on 4-for-19 shooting overall (and 1-for-10 from 3-point range) through his first four games for the Knicks.

But Hart said that his mentality coming into Sunday's game against Chicago was to try to set all of that to the side and focus on what has made him such a fan favorite in New York: playing hard and with energy.

"For me, I'm going through some adversity myself, physically and mentally, so my biggest thing today was going out there and playing with energy," Hart said. "Just getting back to being myself."

Although the shooting remains an issue -- he went 1-for-4 on 3s Sunday night -- the energy and hustle were on full-display Sunday.

"I saw Josh Hart," teammate and close friend Jalen Brunson, who led the Knicks with 31 points, said after Sunday's game. "The one we know and love."

Hart has talked openly about how he's dealing with an injury in his right index finger, one that he initially suffered during the playoffs and then aggravated shortly before training camp.

He's ruled out surgery, though, determined instead to try to play through the issue. He's also adjusting to a new role on the Knicks, going from being a starter all last season under former coach Tom Thibodeau to a full-time bench player under his successor, Mike Brown.

For his part, Brown said he wasn't aware of Hart having nerve issues with his hand and instead credited Hart for both playing through the injury and trying to get up to speed after missing several weeks of preparation time with a new coaching staff and new offensive system.

"That's news to me," Brown said of Hart's issues. "Casey has handled as best he can, and Josh has, too. He had 14 and 9 tonight, so if he's healthy, 'Oh my gosh. Look out.'

"He's playing fine. Again, he's missed a lot of time, so he's playing catch-up, and he's doing a heck of a job playing catch-up for us."