Before the ball goes up …
Don’t expect to see a dressed rehearsal.
The goal tonight is to play 48 minutes without injury. Opening night in Cleveland is a week away. Quentin Richardson isn’t playing again. It’s a way to make sure the sore left ankle is completely healed. Jerome James and Renaldo Balkman are sitting out, too.
No real news there.
Richardson is expected to practice all week and be ready to chase LeBron James next Friday.
“This is me,” Knicks coach Isiah Thomas said when asked if there was a reason to be concerned. “I don’t want any of our guys going into the season with any kind of nagging injuries, whether it be hamstring, calf, slight ankle sprains. The most important thing right now is health. So this is me holding him out.”
Eddy Curry is cleared to lose the shoulder brace tomorrow, but he planned to lobby the medical staff to lose the awkward device tonight. It’s apparently become annoying. We talked with Curry for a few minutes about his adjustment to lining up with Zach Randolph.
He acknowledged there is work to do.
“I was really expecting for it to really be wide open for some reason when I got the ball, but it really seems to be the same (as last season),” Curry said. “I just gotta kind of dissect the game a little bit and see what spots are going to be open for me and for Zach.”
Quite a few of the players got tangled up in traffic coming down from Westchester in the rain. I don’t know whether there will be fines. Thomas was late, too.