The New York Knicks sound hopeful that Jeremy Lin’s return to the lineup may come sooner than later.

Lin did some on-court work in Miami for the fourth consecutive day, before the Knicks played the Miami Heat on Monday night in Game 2 of an Eastern Conference first-round playoff series.

Game 3 isn’t until Thursday in New York. The Knicks plan to practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that could give them time to get a better feel for how Lin’s recovery from surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee is going.

”We haven’t run up and down in terms of being able to scrimmage or anything like that,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. ”And that’s where the test is going to come. When he’s got to cut and guard people and push and do things of that nature, that’s the big test. And we don’t have time to practice like that. We really don’t. So basically all he’s done is drills and he’s shot the ball a lot here as of late, but only time will tell.”

via Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press