RELATED CONTENT

Ridnour Player Page Sonics Beat Get Sonics News Delivered to You!

Luke Ridnour

Ron Artest

Ridnour's nose was bleeding as he walked off the court still somewhat dazed after taking the elbow a little more than five minutes into the game. He suffered a non-displaced fracture of the nasal bone and will be fitted for a protective facemask, which he will wear for the next four to five weeks.

While Sonics Head Coach P.J. Carlesimo questioned whether he'd have Ridnour available for this weekend's road trip after Wednesday's practice, the point guard is officially listed as a game-time decision on Friday, when the Sonics will play the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena.

Regardless of Ridnour's status, Carlesimo plans to use an entirely different starting lineup Friday than the fivesome - Ridnour, Kevin Durant, Damien Wilkins, Nick Collison and Robert Swift - that opened up Tuesday's game.

"There will be a whole different starting lineup tomorrow," said Carlesimo, "and a different one again - maybe not completely different - Saturday (in Indiana). Five different starters for sure on Friday and probably a couple, if they haven't started either game, on Saturday."

At this early stage of the preseason, Carlesimo is continuing to experiment with different lineup combinations and watching how players react to various different roles, including starting and coming off the bench. The second unit Carlesimo chose for the game in Sacramento started the second half, flip-flopping the rotation the team used in the first half.

Swift, who played 22-plus minutes in his first NBA game in over 11 months, experienced soreness in his surgically-repaired right knee this morning and participated only during the early portion of practice.

"He was very sore this morning," Carlesimo said. "That's probably more my fault. I shouldn't have practiced him [in an extended 90-minute shootaround the morning of the game] and played him. We should have done one or the other. That probably contributed to it - or he played too many minutes last night, I don't know which. He will not play both games this weekend, even if he feels good. He'll only play one or the other. If he does play Friday night, we won't practice him an hour and a half.

"In one sense, you've got to push him to find out. In the other sense, we don't want to continue to push him and find out he's going to be sore for a while."

Tape Alters Carlesimo's Assessment

Carlesimo, critical of the Sonics defense as well as 28 turnovers after their game in Sacramento, tempered his assessment after watching film of the game.

"Disappointed in a number of things last night, but, as usual, you watch the tape, it looks a little bit different," he said. "In fairness to the players, we practiced for an hour and a half yesterday morning. I probably should have factored that in a little bit more than I did. We had a good hard practice in Sacramento - which we told them we're going to do for at least the first probably four or five games of the preseason. A, we've got so many guys, and B, we want to get more out of it if we can. That probably took a little bit out of them.

"In watching the tape, I was impressed by the way we hung in. Twice we got down by big margins and could have just rolled over and we didn't do that, so that was encouraging. We did see a lot of the things that we talked about last night. The three biggest problems were fouls - we put them on the free-throw line for too many shots, too many turnovers and our rebounding was just atrocious.

"I feel a lot better today than I did last night, that's for sure."

The Sonics watched tape Wednesday morning before getting on the practice court for a session Carlesimo called "very encouraging." They'll have a short practice Thursday before heading to Cleveland. During the two-game road trip, Carlesimo will be looking to see if the effort from practice can carry over into a game.

"We've got to take it from the practice tee to the golf course," he explained.