OKLAHOMA CITY — One point guard was in, another remained out.
Jalen Brunson was active and started in the Knicks’ 117-107 loss to the Thunder on Friday night after missing the previous contest because of a strained calf.
Brunson, who scored 22 points and had nine assists in the loss, had been listed as questionable prior to tipoff but warmed up without a setback and returned following his lone absence of the season.
Oklahoma City Thunder. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
Miles McBride, however, missed his second straight game with a hamstring strain he suffered in Wednesday’s pregame warm-ups.
Without both on Wednesday, the Knicks still bludgeoned the Jazz at MSG.
Their test was much tougher against the Thunder, which entered Friday night on a 13-game winning streak with the best record in the West.
McBride, the team’s top reserve, had missed five games earlier this season because of a sore knee.
Following Friday morning’s shootaround, Karl-Anthony Towns wore a hard brace over his left ring finger.
Asked if it was broken, Towns replied, “It’s a finger, it’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
Towns injured the finger in Wednesday’s victory over the Jazz, but kept playing and finished with 31 points and 21 rebounds.
Perhaps fortunately, the finger injury wasn’t to his dominant shooting hand.
“I use both hands, though,” Towns said.
Isaiah Hartenstein, now with the Thunder after two seasons in New York, clarified his remark that he wouldn’t have allowed Trae Young to roll dice on the Garden logo.
“I’m just kind of saying more my situation if someone did it, something happened and kind of if it was on this [OKC] court,” Hartenstein said. “I can’t tell you what they saw but if I saw it, I probably would have said something [to Young].”
Josh Hart, who was close to Young at the time, said he didn’t see Young’s dice roll.
Brunson said the Knicks should’ve won the game to stop the celebration.
Thibodeau expressed sympathy for the family of longtime and former Knicks employee Chris Bernard, who died suddenly from a heart attack earlier this week at just 47 years old.
“Just sad,” the Knicks coach said. “And obviously condolences go to his family. Thoughts and prayers are with them. I was with the Knicks (as an assistant under Jeff Van Gundy) when he was hired. And just an unbelievable person. A bright light every day. Great energy. Positive. Just sad. Really sad.”
Bernard worked for the Knicks for over a decade, including as the VP of player development. More recently, he was the SVP of athlete marketing and development with The Players’ Tribune.
He is survived by his wife, Amanda, and three children.
A GoFundMe page set up by NBPA executive Dan Gladstone for Bernard’s family had raised roughly $140,000 by Friday afternoon.