Milwaukee – So I dropped my dog off at the kennel yesterday before heading to the airport for my flight to Milwaukee. Dr. Parver at Animal Medicine & Surgery of Little Neck – a loyal Newsday reader – asked where I was headed. San Antonio for the Final Four?
“Nope,” I replied. “Going to Milwaukee.”
“Why?” Dr. Parver asked.
“To watch the Knicks play the Bucks,” I said.
A long pause ensued, and Dr. Parver’s face became contorted with a befuddled expression.
“Oh, dear God,” he said.
Yeah, pretty much.
From the defeated body language I observed as the squad made its way into the visiting locker room of the Bradley Center for shootaround this morning, the players feel the same way. They probably would prefer being locked in a metal cage, munching on Kibbles & Bits and scratching themselves for the rest of the season as opposed to playing out their miserable existence over the next nine games.
Zach Randolph is back after missing Friday night’s game in Toronto with the flu. He played against the Nets and Heat last week, but was held out of previous games against Memphis and Minnesota so rookie Randolph Morris could get some minutes. Yawn.
Isiah Thomas is still coaching the team, though he appears to be growing bored watching us reporters chase our own tails as we try to find new and insightful questions to ask him. He dodged a question about whether he has consulted Jim Dolan about playing the youngsters down the stretch, and took offense to a line of questioning about how few practices he’s been holding lately.
“We don’t have healthy bodies,” Thomas said. “If you look at our schedule and our travel, we’re getting in a lot at 3 in the morning and we’ve got guys playing a lot of minutes. You definitely need energy for the game, but sometimes you just didn’t have enough bodies to practice with. So guys come over and they get their work in. We may not have a formal practice, but every single day people are in the gym once, sometimes twice a day.
“And there haven’t been days off,” Thomas said. “There have been days where you guys haven’t been invited. There hasn’t been a day that guys haven’t been involved in the gym in some type of activity. You can’t have a ‘practice practice’ if you don’t have enough bodies. So what you do is, you bring three or four guys over and get individual work and work on their individual games. There’s not too much you’re going to add to or learn from the system in the next nine games.”
Are the coaches involved?
“The coaches are here – the coaches and Greg [Brittenham] and everyone’s involved,” Thomas said.
Then Thomas let it be known that he’d had enough with this particular line of questioning.
“Well, I’ll put it to you this way,” he said. “I think we’re practicing as much as any other team right now in the NBA is practicing.”
Knicks and Bucks tonight, 8 p.m. Something tells me Dr. Parver – and many of you – won’t be watching.