The Wizards rolled back into town Sunday morning after going 1-3 during a four-game road trip out West to find Washington buried in snow, kind of like the way they’re buried in the Eastern Conference. Although despite having the third worst record in the East, they’re still just a mere two games out of the eighth seed in the playoffs and three games out of sixth.
It makes it easier for Wizards to again push back on reserving judgment, now to the middle of the season, when merely a little more than a week ago, they passed the 20-game mark, a point in the season at which head coach Flip Saunders said: “I think you’ll know where you’re at.”
He took a different tact after Monday’s practice: “I thought we had the ability, but I didn’t think you’d see where we really were until we got some 40-some games in because of all the different dynamics, the guys coming back off injuries. That’s not even taking into consideration having guys hurt once the year started, knowing where Gilbert was going to be. Plus the East got better.”
You mean the same Eastern Conference where five of 15 teams have winning records? Then again, Saunders also had an opinion on the blizzard: “This isn’t 20 inches. We’ve seen 20 inches in Minnesota. This looks like six inches to me.”
As for the players, they continue to be banged up. Antawn Jamison (shoulder) didn’t practice — “His good shoulder is his bad shoulder,” said Saunders — nor did Gilbert Arenas (hip), who left Verizon Center with a bag of ice in the waistband of his sweatpants. Javaris Crittenton and Mike Miller took some shots only. Surprisingly — and by that, I mean not surprisingly — Miller said he would play tomorrow against Philadelphia, and he’d certainly like to appear against his former teams, Minnesota and Memphis, this weekend. But it is more likely that his calf problem will keep him out until we get to a new calendar year.
“The one person that’s really helped me with it is [Wizards assistant coach] Sam Cassell, who had this injury,” said Miller. “He told me basically what to expect. He said it’s going to start feeling better, but be careful when it does because you go out there and do something. He said the same thing happened to him, he went out there and ended up getting hurt.”
“My shoulder’s better,” said Miller of the silver lining to the calf injury. “It’s still not exactly where I want it to be but it’s a lot better. The stuff I was going through with that was pretty bad. At some point it probably was better that I was out because I was getting pretty bad.”
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