Washington looks to bounce back tonight against Indiana

November 6, 1:12 PMWashington Wizards ExaminerGeorge Panagakos

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Can Butler (left) provide the "dagger" tonight against the
Pacers on the road? (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

The 2-3 Washington Wizards will challenge the 1-3 Indiana Pacers tonight on the road.  Both teams have suffered extensive injuries this season, Mike Miller the most recent after a shoulder tweak last Wednesday as the Wizards fell to the Miami Heat.

With both Antawn Jamison and Mike Miller out for Washington due to shoulder related injuries, you'd think the Wizards might start shopping around for shoulder insurance.  Without their two veteran sharp shooters on the court, Washington will need combo guard Randy Foye to step up big tonight, and Head Coach Flip Saunders may consider playing Nick Young at small forward during stretches of the game.

Miller, out for a projected 7-10 days, may miss the next four games, which will give Young some time to prove himself on this competitive roster.  After Young's 0-for-8 showing against the Atlanta Hawks last Friday, he avoided an encore the very next day by making a tough fade-away jump shot from the baseline, maybe a 19-footer, as Washington rolled through New Jersey in a big home opener win over the Nets.  Then against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Young earned some garbage minutes, scored a basket, and made his first trip to the free throw line.

Other than Travis Diener, who is day-to-day with a toe injury, the Pacers will not have to worry about their guards tonight.  However, the Pacers' frontcourt is worn.  Danny Granger, Troy Murphy, and Jeff Foster are all day-to-day, while Tyler Hansbrough will likely miss tonight's action (and perhaps find someone's puppy in the meantime) and Mike Dunleavy is not expected back until late December.

One of the more memorable 19 wins of Washington's 2008-09 season came when Caron Butler turned on the defensive juices against Granger and the Pacers last February.  Butler had a hot hand that night and sealed a Wizards victory when he nailed a clutch jumper over Granger at the buzzer. 

Former All-Star Butler had a difficult night against Miami last Wednesday but finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds in the loss, his first double-double of the season.  Brendan Haywood also had his first double-double of the season, 16 points and 11 rebounds.  Without Jamison, Haywood is eating up the rebounds, and the match-up between the Pacers Roy Hibbert and the Wizards Haywood should turn out to be an interesting battle to watch tonight, and perhaps a key factor to determine tonight's winner.

Tonight's game will air on Comcast SportsNet at 7:00 p.m. ET.  You can also tune in to 106.7 The Fan.

The B-Ball Celeb Dish
If you have a flair for the ridiculous, like the idea LeBron James will ask to be sent to the Lakers next year due to the "slow start" by Cleveland (who seem to be on national TV every day), then you'll love tonight's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which will feature Lakers' forward Lamar Odom and wife Khloe Kardashian, sister to the infamous Kim Kardashian.  Shortly after the two became engaged mid-September, after just several weeks of knowing each other, Kimmel decided to paint a pumpkin with the faces of the two love birds, and Kimmel attached a challenge that the pumpkin would last longer than the Odom-Kardashian marriage.  Well, for some reason, the newly-wed couple decided to entertain Kimmel by being on his show tonight, after a pit stop at Chelsea Lately.  And since no one can get enough of LeBron these days, with his contract up in 2010 and all of the hype of New York tonight, here's a YouTube clip which features both LeBron and that Pumpkin:

 

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! show airs at around 12:06 a.m. ET, check your local listings after tonight's Wizards game.

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