Suns hope Johnson returns for Game 3
Phoenix Suns guard Joe Johnson will not play in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals tonight, coach Mike D’Antoni said Monday.
That will give Johnson four more days to get ready for a possible return for Game 3 Saturday night in San Antonio.
“That’s the whole thing. That’s why we’re not rushing him,” D’Antoni said after the Suns practiced Monday. “We’ve got to get him under the gun and see how he plays, because we can’t just throw him out there and say ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s a disaster.’ We have to, from practice, have an inkling of the way he is going to play.”
Johnson has been sidelined since he fractured his left eye socket on May 11 in a frightening, face-first fall to the court in Game 2 of the conference semifinal series against Dallas. He underwent surgery the following day to have a metal plate inserted to keep the bones in place.
D’Antoni acknowledged that the Suns “got a little carried away” when they speculated late last week that Johnson might be back for Sunday’s series opener against San Antonio, a game the Suns lost 121-114.
“I wasn’t around him a lot to be honest with you, and I kept hearing `Oh, he’s feeling great,’ ” D’Antoni said. “Then I saw him and went, you know he’s not feeling good.”
While Johnson has taken a few shots and done some conditioning work, he hasn’t had any live practice.
“We are going to be 100 percent certain before we put him into a live basketball game, where you face a lot more risk than you do just getting yourself ready to play,” Suns president and general manager Bryan Colangelo said.
Johnson was not at practice Monday. Instead, he was seeing doctors and having more adjustments done on the protective mask designed for him to wear when he does return.
Sixers fire O’Brien
Jim O’Brien was fired after one season as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers and replaced by former Portland coach Maurice Cheeks, one of the most popular players in franchise history.
O’Brien, a Philadelphia native who played for Saint Joseph’s, went 43-39 in his only season and the Sixers were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Detroit.
He was in the first year of a four-year contract that paid him about $4 million a year. O’Brien, though, was not very popular with his players – most notably former All-Star Chris Webber – who often complained about their roles.
“Not one of them said they could not play for Jim and it wasn’t a decision where it was a coup or anything of that nature,” team president Billy King said. “I just felt the direction we were going and the overall play wasn’t where we wanted to go.”
Cheeks was one of the most popular 76ers from 1978-89 and played on Philadelphia’s last championship team in 1983.
“Mo is family. Mo bleeds 76ers. He bleeds Philadelphia,” King said.
Magic’s G.M. resigns
John Weisbrod always had his eyes on the prize, just not the one the Orlando Magic were shooting for.
Weisbrod resigned as general manager of the Magic only 14 months after the former pro hockey player was hired to rebuild a moribund franchise in his own hard-nosed style. He will now return to hockey and pursue opportunities in the sport he truly loves.
“It’s not in the best interest of the organization of having a GM that, in his heart, would trade three NBA championships for one Stanley Cup,” said Weisbrod.