So, what's up with Iman Shumpert's knee?

Deron Williams's venomous assault on the Knicks last night had quite a few folks on Twitter being all like "WHY ISNT D'UMBPHONEY PLAYING IMAM SHUMPER #KNICKS" and, indeed, the Knicks could have used Iman Shumpert's defensive presence, at least as an alternative. It sure didn't seem like Williams could have been stopped by any mortal being, but Shump is New York's best individual perimeter defender and if anybody was going to make a difference, it would have been him.

Alas, Shump missed his chance to contribute not because Coach Michael D'umbphoney forgot to play him, but because he was in dress clothes on the sideline. The explanation we got was left patella tendinitis, which had apparently been bugging him for a while. After the jump, some bullet points on the topic because I'm not smart enough to compose paragraphs.

- Here's Al Iannazzone's full report on the injury. Some important points: 1. It's not the same knee that Shump hurt in the first game of the year. (is this one of those "compensation" injuries?). 2. Shump was reportedly given the night off because, with J.R. Smith available and Baron Davis debuting, the Knicks finally had enough backcourt depth to fill in for him.

- Alan Hahn also addressed this in his pre-game Fix thing last night.

- This explains some stuff, doesn't it? We were all befuddled by Shump's tendency to make slick drives to the rim, only to bungle his take-off and blow the finish. We'd even seen him botch open attempts because he seemed halfway between a dunk and a layup. So, it's almost reassuring in a way.

- No dunk contest, right? I hope not.

- The Knicks, as mentioned previously, are not practicing today, so we probably won't get an update until shootaround tomorrow.

And that's what's up with Shump and his knee.