Sometimes Gerald Wallace's nickname - "Crash"
- is way too accurate. Sunday, for instance.
It was late in practice, and Wallace, the Charlotte Bobcats' co-captain, cut to the basket, taking a pass from D.J. Augustin and hurtling to the rim. He never made it, crumpling to the floor, his left ankle in severe pain.
He laid there for 10 minutes before teammates Stephen Jackson and Nazr Mohammed carried him to the training room.
The good news: Based on a lack of initial swelling, Wallace apparently didn't re-sprain his ankle. The bad news: He definitely aggravated the bone bruise, a major factor in him missing five games recently.
The team hadn't ruled him out of Monday's home game against the Miami Heat, though coach Paul Silas was certainly going through contingencies. Silas said if Wallace can't play, he'd likely start Gerald Henderson, who had a breakthrough game against the Golden State Warriors on Friday.
Henderson made 5 of 6 shots and had two big defensive plays late against Monta Ellis.
"Gerald has really picked his game up - he's shooting better and he's defending and he's very confident,"
Silas said of Henderson. "But it would be more difficult without Gerald (Wallace) because he was really enjoying himself and coming on."
Wallace missed five games, spread over two weeks, after injuring himself in a home victory over the Toronto Raptors. Though the injury was initially described as a sprain, the bone bruise actually became the bigger problem because the pain kept him from jumping effectively.
That's what could make this such a setback, particularly when Wallace would be assigned to guard the best small forward in the league, in Miami's LeBron James.
Not that all the injury-related news was bad; power forward Tyrus Thomas fully participated in practice Sunday, after missing the past two games with a sprained right wrist. The Bobcats anticipate Thomas playing against the Heat.
Meanwhile, center Gana Diop is still out with an Achilles tendon injury. Diop will meet with a foot specialist Monday afternoon to examine the injury. With Diop out, Kwame Brown would likely go back into the rotation (he started the last game before Larry Brown was fired).
It was clear from how the coaching staff spent extra time with Kwame Brown following practice Sunday that they're preparing him to play significant minutes.
