Steve Nash may be on a similar timeline in terms of his chances of returning for the Lakers, and he may even have to accept a different role, from Mark Medina of Daily News: “But with his persisting back injury and his early-season struggles, would the 39-year-old guard accept a bench role with the Lakers? “I’ll do whatever I can to help the team,” Nash said. “But the first thing I have to do is try get myself in a position where I can sustain the demands of the game. Right now my back is susceptible to those things.”… He reported “a lot of improvement” in the past week, though Nash it appears “unlikely” and very doubtful he will play Friday when the Lakers (9-9) visit the Sacramento Kings (4-11) at Sleep Train Arena. Nash participated in full-court five-on-five drills for 10 minutes Tuesday before the Lakers sat him down for precautionary reasons. They hope Nash can increase his workload in practices both Wednesday and Thursday.”
Andrei Kirilenko remains without a timetable despite treatments, from Mike Mazzeo of ESPN NY: “Two epidurals and three setbacks later, Brooklyn Nets forward Andrei Kirilenko still has no timetable for when he will return to the lineup. Kirilenko has already missed 13 games this season because of back spasms. “I’m afraid of giving a timetable, because in the previous occasions, we’ve given a timetable, but it doesn’t work,” Kirilenko said. Kirilenko said this time he needs to take more time off before returning to full contract practice. “What I’m doing right now is a lot of physical therapy and kind of strengthening the core,” Kirilenko said. “Right now I’m just thinking everyday I’m gradually getting better and better. It’s just frustrating because there’s a lot of games and you want to play but you’re missing so much.”
- Brian Shaw was supposed to be a strong candidate to coach the Nets, according to Mazzeo: “At one point, before they decided to go with Jason Kidd, it appeared that Brian Shaw was going to be the next head coach of the Nets. “I thought I had a pretty good chance,” Shaw said. “I knew I was the last person to interview for the position. I knew Jason interviewed a few days before me and actually when I did interview Billy King told me he was going to hire Jason or myself. “I made no secret that I flew cross-country and I got off the plane, got to the hotel and turned on the TV and I saw that it said they were already in negotiation with Jason to be coach. That kind of threw me off a little bit, but I still went through with the interview. Everything happens for a reason and I’m happy with the situation I’m in.”
- Dwane Casey was completely dejected after the loss against Golden State, from Ryan Wolstat of Toronto Sun: “There’s no coming back from this for the coaching staff, so the elephant in the room, the lame duck status of Dwane Casey will be resolved. And it can only be resolved one way now. “It’s hard to keep your head up,” said a stunned Casey afterward. Dwane’s been around a long time. He surely knows his time in Toronto is running out, barring a miracle in the next couple of weeks – and how many miracles has this organization had on its side over the years? Starting the fourth, knowing Golden State was about to start throwing Mike Tyson haymakers, putting Steve Novak, the team’s worst defender on the floor was an odd gamble. Letting Kyle Lowry stay on the court despite getting his bell rung was a gamble. Even if he didn’t have a concussion, he didn’t look right. Julyan Stone did a decent job earlier and is a superb defender who forced Stephen Curry into a rare pull-up airball earlier in the game (Curry is the league’s best pull-up shooter). Then the team failed to load up at the three-point line, daring the Warriors the best three-point shooting team in NBA history, to beat Toronto by going to the rim. It wasn’t pretty.”
Carmelo Anthony is concerned about the status of Mike Woodson, who doesn’t think it’s “panic time”, from Frank Isola of Daily News: “Mike Woodson’s most important ally, Carmelo Anthony, admitted that Knick players are “worried” that Woodson could lose his job if the Knicks don’t turn their season around. “I mean, yeah, we’re worried about that,” Anthony said on Tuesday. “But then again, we’ve got to worry about playing basketball, man. I think that’s been a problem in New York all this time. Everybody worries about what’s being said on the outside. “As a team we’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to control our locker room. We’ve got to control what happens on the basketball court. That’s by us playing hard, that’s by us sticking to the game plan and doing what coach Woodson says to do out there on the basketball court. We can’t worry about the speculation that’s going on outside this building and we shouldn’t. And as a leader of this team I’ll try my best not to allow that.”… “It’s not panic time,” Woodson said. “We’re sitting here playing better basketball and not being able to close things out, three games out of first place.“No, it’s not panic time. We just have to figure out a way to win a game. We gotta go out and beat Brooklyn, that’s the name of the game.”
Jeff Van Gundy thinks no team under .500 should be in the playoffs, from Howard Beck of Bleacher Report: “That left an astounding 12 teams flailing below .500—a revolting assortment of busted lineups, broken All-Stars and bewildered upstarts. They are the clueless, the overhyped, the underachievers and the tankers, collectively bobbing in the muck, a blazing inferno of ineptitude, a tire fire of futility, a miserable mosaic of, um, well… “Listen, no one can explain just how bad it is,” said ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy. “I mean, there’s just no explanation.”… “I’ve always been of the belief that no teams should make the playoffs with a sub-.500 record,” said Van Gundy, who has been vocal on the issue.Van Gundy suggested that, in a year like this, winning teams from the West should replace the losing teams at the bottom of the East playoff bracket. Others have proposed abolishing the conferences entirely and simply seeding the best 16 teams.”
Jermaine O’Neal is becoming a vocal leader for the Warriors, from Tim Kawakami of Mercury News: “Q: Was the response to your half-time spiel quiet? Was it loud? -O’NEAL: It wasn’t quiet. You couldn’t hear the fire popping off the wood. But sometimes you need that, you need the shock. And I’m not one of those guys where I just get to yelling and screaming and have no angle to it. This is real. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort to this–the preparation of coach Jackson and his staff, the fan support that we get in this building every single night, the ownership, the money that they put into this team… you don’t get this opportunity a lot. So we had better do a better job of understanding of what’s all at stake here. Because you may not get this opportunity again in another year to compete for a championship. I know that first hand. I tell these guys, I’m into my 18th year, I’m not playing for any money. I’m playing for a championship. Because God has blessed me to make a nice living for my family and be a building block for my family for many years.”
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
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