Mike Miller said he’s bored. He didn’t accompany the Wizards to Miami or Indianapolis due to the left shoulder injury he suffered last week against the Heat at Verizon Center.
He wants to play Saturday vs. Detroit.
“I was a little tired today,” said Miller, who did participate in full contact practice on Thursday. “But that’s to be expected. I’ll be fine. I told [Wizards head coach] Flip [Saunders] that I’ll be ready to play, and if he feels like I’m hurting the team, take me out.”
It’s just one of a few player decisions Saunders has looming as he gets set to face his former team for the first time during the regular season. Antawn Jamison (left shoulder) missed his second straight practice with illness, which could put what looked like it might be his season debut in doubt, and while Randy Foye (right ankle sprain) did some jogging, it seems unlikely that he’ll return before next week. Javaris Crittenton gets the walking boot off his left foot next week but still won’t be running for another two weeks, and Mike James (left hand) obviously also remains out.
“[Miller] did some good things, and it’s just a matter of how much he’ll be able to sustain,” said Saunders. “Our big thing is we just want to put him in a situation where he’s not going to hurt that thing anymore. There’s a difference between being hurt and being injured. Now that he did that and got hit a few times, we’ll have to see how it reacts tomorrow and what kind of soreness he has.”
The more pressing concern for Saunders, however, is snapping Washington’s five-game skid, and all the better if he can do it versus the Pistons.
“Our main thing is we need to make some shots to get our confidence going offensively so hopefully we’ll be able to do that,” he said. “… Right now I’m more concerned about what we’re going to do than what they’re going to do. I worried about them two years ago. I don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
Saunders said his former point guard, Chauncey Billups, called him last night: “We were talking, and he said that sometimes it takes some time to understand everything because it’s a counterpunching type of offense. You have to kind of take what they give you, and if you force things, you put yourselves in bad spots. You just have to let it kind of come. Right now we want to do the right thing, we’re trying to force things a little we’re just not letting things flow so it takes some time.”
Inevitably, that leads to questions about how well Gilbert Arenas is coming along. “I think he grasps [the offense] a little bit,” said Saunders. “It’s just the combination of he’s still trying to find out when things go bad when he should try to take over or not take over. That’s part of the situation.”
Saunders also pointed to the challenge for Arenas to be on both mentally and physically after not playing at this level night after night for a long time.
In any case, getting Miller, the team’s second-leading rebound (8.2 per game), back on the court should help, but while he admitted to reporters that he still has some pain, Miller said he’ll be reluctant to have the same disclosure with the Wizards training staff.
“To be honest with you, it’s one of the worst ones I’ve had in the shoulder,” said Miller. “I didn’t expect that. But it’s a fun pain.”
One could argue that against Miami, he was still effective basically playing one-armed, which it sounds like he was doing today: “It’s going to be tough. I had a hard time today even when the ball goes on my left side for rebounds. But it is what it is. At the end of the day, I’m not going to talk about it much anymore because it’s going to hurt. Sometime hopefully in the future, I’ll feel better. But as of right now, if I go out there and play, I’m good enough to play.”
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