“I can’t wait to play and get out there,’’ Stoudemire said. “I want to play but the training staff is telling me to take it easy. Me personally, I want to play. I’ve got to follow their lead.’’

The Knicks will have six days off after tonight before they face the Raptors in Montreal. That would give Stoudemire plenty of time to fully mend.

“I still want to see how it feels [today],’’ Stoudemire said. “We’re taking a precautionary route making sure everything is 100 percent. A bone bruise is never a fun thing. It takes a while for it to heal. We’re just trying to break up the blood that’s in there. Whenever you get a bruise it’s accumulation of blood in that area. It takes a while to loosen that blood up.”

via Marc Berman of the New York Post