The day-to-day status of John Wall and Yi Jianlian continues indefinitely, with Wizards head coach Flip Saunders pronouncing Wall a game-time decision and Yi a no-go against visiting Memphis.
“No update,” said Saunders of Wall. “He’s seeing the doctor this morning, take a look, so we’ll know game-time.”
About a minute after he said that, Wall appeared in the Verizon Center hallway without the walking boot that he’s been wearing since suffering a left foot sprain last Saturday night at Chicago.
Yi, who was injured by Wall when the rookie fell backward into him and hyper-extended his right knee, was upbeat about a swift return earlier in the week, but Saunders wasn’t hesitant about ruling him out.
“He’s still got soreness,” said Saunders. “When you hyperextend your knee like that, you’re not usually going to come back in a week. But we’ll see. Every day he gets a little bit better, he’s just got some soreness, and I don’t think he’s full go yet.”
Tonight’s game against the Grizzlies will be the third contest in four days for the Wizards, and Flip has some concerns about his young group’s ability to handle the busy stretch, especially his starters, and the result could be more minutes for guys like Nick Young and rookie Trevor Booker, who’ve given solid contributions off the bench.
“We got some energy guys we’ll have to put in there,” said Saunders. “You look back in Boston, we tried to go with our main guys, and they didn’t have it. We stayed with them maybe a little bit too long from that standpoint because Booker played really well when he was in there. We probably should’ve played him a little bit more. Tonight might be a game where we are going to have to stay with more energy-type guys.”
As for Young: “He’s played really well. Not only has he played well offensively, but defensively he’s done a really nice job. I think Kirk Hinrich’s helped him a lot. I think Kirk looks for him a lot when he sees him get going, and gets him into his rhythm. He’s been a bright spot here over the last ten days, both offensively and defensively in his consistency.”
