Arenas needs more work before returning to starting lineup
While John Wall continues to carve out spots for himself in the NBA record books, Gilbert Arenas is trying to squeeze in any extra practice time he can to help come back from the ankle and groin injuries that delayed the start of his season.
But Arenas isn’t frustrated despite scoring only five points and missing six of seven shots against Houston on Wednesday while Wall registered his first career triple-double.
“I can’t find the rhythm in the midrange, but I’ve got it at the 3-point line,” said Arenas, whose only basket against the Rockets was a swished 25-footer early in the fourth quarter. “It’s going to take time. All the hard work I did this summer, I like lost it in three weeks.”
The Wizards (2-4) aren’t rushing his return, but Arenas, who has always been the consummate gym rat, was back at Verizon Center four hours before Thursday’s practice to get in extra work and help establish some rhythm. Once practice started, he also guarded the lightning-quick Wall, an activity that beats the heck out of any treadmill.
“Coach put me at the one against John so we can just go back and forth, so I can get some reps playing with the ball a little bit,” said Arenas, who has spent most of his time on the floor the past three games at shooting guard.
Flip Saunders also praised Arenas’ defensive effort against Houston, but he remains leery of moving Arenas back into a starting role before he’s got a few more games under his belt.
“Until we see that he can really go hard in back-to-backs and gets that weight down a little bit he’s not going to be able to play those major minutes just because we don’t want to put him in a situation where he’s had some nagging injuries and he gets hurt again,” Saunders said.
For his part, Arenas is quieting the notion that he’ll be unable to coexist in the backcourt with Wall, taking big brother-style pride in helping shine the spotlight on the rookie, as he did when Wall slammed home his fast-break alley-oop in the second quarter.
“You gotta play,” Arenas said. “That’s what basketball is about, getting your rhythm, getting your confidence, shot after shot, like the lob to John. That got his confidence going. He started rebounding and looking for players, and his shot started going down.”
