GREENBURGH, N.Y. — When the Knicks take the Madison Square Garden floor Tuesday night for their preseason home opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, Eddy Curry won’t take a single shot or grab a single rebound.
But Knicks President Donnie Walsh wants the 7-foot, 317-pound Curry back as soon as humanly possible.
Curry left training camp in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. on Sept. 29 after tearing his right plantaris muscle and hasn’t returned to practice since.
“I’m pushing for as soon as he can get here healthy and our trainers I think are doing a good job,” Walsh said after Monday’s practice. “And Eddy’s working hard, is what they tell me.”
The Knicks open the regular season Oct. 28 in Miami and host the Sixers in the home opener Oct. 31, but Walsh wouldn’t commit to a timeline on when Curry might return.
“I don’t want to put a timetable on it,” he said.
Walsh said Curry lost significant weight this summer, but then pulled “his hamstring once and his calf muscle another time” after returning in early September.
“He got his weight down over the summer but he didn’t do it by playing basketball,” Walsh said. “So when he came out and started playing basketball he kept pulling muscles. So we’re working on getting his weight further down and getting his muscles to the point where he can get out here and run at the speed they’re running.”
Walsh wouldn’t disclose Curry’s weight, but said he is working out “two-three times a day” at the Knicks’ Westchester campus.
“When these guys are working out, he’s doing a workout,” Walsh said. “He’s doing sometimes pool work. He’s doing stuff with weights. Then he comes back in the afternoon, then he comes back at night.”
FREE THROWS
The starting lineup on Tuesday will be Chris Duhon, Wilson Chandler, David Lee, Al Harrington and Jared Jeffries…The Knicks on Monday hosted 30 kids from The Children’s Village of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. at a private day at the training center followed by a refurbishment and unveiling of a new outdoor basketball court at The Children’s Village…Lee took five stitches above his left eye after getting hit by Boston’s Paul Pierce in Friday’s exhibition in Boston, but he says he’s OK…The Knicks moved their game-day shootaround from 10 a.m. in Greenburgh to 3:30 p.m. at the Garden so that players don’t have to travel as much and can have a pregame meal before the game. “Coach ran it by me being one of the veterans and I was for it,” Lee said. “I think that we’ll be able to get our sure rest and then be focused right when we get to the Garden.”
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