As expected, Raymond Felton practiced with the Knicks today and Coach Woodson confirmed that he will play against the Heat tomorrow night. We hadn’t heard anything from Felton since his arrest and he just released a statement a short time ago at practice. Report after the jump…
Via ESPN:
“I want to start off by saying thank you to my teammates, thank you to the fans, to my family, to my friends, everybody for their support in this situation,” Felton said in a statement. “This is not a distraction to this team. I’m focusing on finishing out this season, finishing out these games with my teammates. And going down to Miami, focusing on this next game at task versus the defending champs.
“As far as speaking on what’s going on off the court with me, there will be no comment. If you’ve got any questions, anything dealing with that, speak with my lawyer. But other than that, I’m here to concentrate on this team, finish this season out with the New York Knicks and see what happens, man. Trying to make it to the playoffs. We’re 5½ games out, 25 games left, so I’m really focusing on that with these guys, with the team and trying to make that happen.”
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Center Tyson Chandler said that, outside of the added media at practice Wednesday, the situation has not been a distraction.
“Honestly, I don’t think that’s any of my business,” Chandler said of talking to Felton about what happened. “My concern is him as an individual, as a friend, teammate, brother, and when he’s ready to play basketball, go out there and fight with him.
“He seemed like he was no different than when I saw him at [Monday’s] game. He seemed very focused, very attentive to what was going on as far as our game plan for Miami. Like I said, if it wasn’t for all the media, I wouldn’t know what was going on.”
