Jason Richardson isn’t too worried. In fact, the veteran Sixers guard said he kind of expected his body to respond overzealously in certain situations.
Nevertheless, Richardson will miss Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers because of swelling in his surgically repaired knee. Coincidentally, it was an injury that occurred while practicing at Santa Monica High School prior to last week against the Lakers.
Richardson sat out of two of the Sixers’ last five games, including Sunday night’s one-point loss in Cleveland. He expects to play Wednesday night in Washington.
“I just needed some time off,” Richardson said. “I’ve been working and pushing it and it’s probably going to happen for the rest of my career. There will be good days and bad days and I’ll just have to take some time off and get ready to get back at it.”
Richardson missed nearly two years because of torn cartilage behind his left knee. He returned to game action on Feb. 20 and has averaged more than 22 minutes per night in 15 games when many thought he would never play again.
Though Richardson is shooting just 31.7 percent from the floor with 8.6 points per game, that’s really beside the point.
“My instinct is that I always want to play and I always want to push it,” Richardson said. “At the same time, I came a long way and for me to continue to play, I have to listen to my body.”
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Richardson pointed out that he had not worked out during the summer or took part in training camp for more than two years, so to push his body through some aches and pains would be foolish.
“He came to me a few games ago and said, ‘I don’t want you to feel as though you have to start me,’” coach Brett Brown said. “As I told him it was never a favor, it was because he’s good. He started feeling the weight of missing shots and the continuity of playing basketball all the time and his body just didn’t respond. So that was when we decided to sit him down.”
Richardson had been sitting out one half of back-to-back games, but with seven games left in the season and only one more set of back-to-backs remaining on the schedule, the veteran wants to finish the season strong.