FOOT FAULT: Rasheed Wallace’s jumper is blocked by the Bobcats’ Bismack Biyombo during the Knicks’ 106-95 loss last night. Wallace played only four minutes before leaving with a sore left foot. (Reuters)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — This was supposed to be a test run for Rasheed Wallace, a chance, according to Knicks coach Mike Woodson, “to get his feet wet a little bit.”
The test lasted all of four minutes, as Wallace left last night’s 106-95 loss to the Bobcats with a sore left foot. He then left the arena without comment, but with a noticeable limp.
“I’m not saying it’s a setback,” Woodson said. “He was a little sore. He asked me to come out and I pulled him. We’ll evaluate it a little more and see how he feels.”
So in a game with all the value of Monopoly money, the Knicks utilized seven players — one of them Wallace, so yeah, they played six. Carmelo Anthony (shoulder), J.R. Smith (rest), Tyson Chandler (neck), Kenyon Martin (ankle) and Amar’e Stoudemire (knee) didn’t even travel. Raymond Felton and Marcus Camby dressed and didn’t play.
Subtract all those bodies and even the Bobcats can look formidable as the 53-victory Knicks, with the No. 2 Eastern seed locked up, took it on the chin, but still finished with a 23-18 road record.
The hope was that the Knicks were getting their big-man alignment back. Wallace entered with 3:08 left in the first quarter and then exited at 11:18 of the second, playing all of 3:50 before the team announced he was done for the night with a sore left foot.
In his 21st game this season and his first game since Dec. 13 while battling a fractured foot, Wallace made one of three shots and scored two points. Woodson had said he wanted to “just test him and see where he is.”
He was in the infirmary fairly soon.
“I wasn’t disappointed. I thought the minutes he gave were positive,” said Jason Kidd, who played 21 minutes off the bench as all five starters went at least 41 minutes. “He’s probably going to have some soreness. I’m just happy that he’s not hurt. Hopefully he can build on the four minutes.
“I’m not concerned at all. He’s coming off a surgery, so the big thing is he’s going to be sore. Hopefully he didn’t hurt himself.”
Said Steve Novak: “Obviously we want to be playing for several months, still, and we can absolutely use him at any point he’s healthy. … The truth is, if he can affect one playoff series, that’s huge for us. Obviously we just have to take it slow with his foot.”
The Knicks have one more regular-season game, tomorrow at home against the Hawks, and Woodson indicated most of his regulars will get some time — he wasn’t sure about Chandler. Figure you won’t see the starting lineup of James White, Novak, Chris Copeland, Iman Shumpert and Pablo Prigioni announced last night, following a moment of silence for the victims of the explosions at the Boston Marathon.
Woodson said he will immediately begin prepping today for the first-round series with the Celtics that begins Saturday. But he’ll take time to go over Wallace’s re-evaluation.
“We took him out,” Woodson said. “We’ll evaluate him [today] and see how he feels and gauge it that way. That’s the only thing we can do. He tried. That’s the only thing he could do. He tried. We’ll know more [today].
The game was pretty much what you’d expect. The Knicks, who earlier in the day waived F/C Solomon Jones after two games, got a personal best 32 points from Copeland. They also got 17 points from Novak, 15 from White and a fruitless attempt to play by Felton. The point guard said he presented his case to play.
“It didn’t work,” he said.