By Mike McGraw (Daily Herald Blog)After a heroic effort on a painful foot Friday, Joakim Noah said that he'll most likely skip the team's flight to Indianapolis and watch from home while the Bulls play the Pacers on Saturday.
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Here's the full script of Noah's postgame interview, which doesn't need much explanation:
“I’m not feeling great. I’m happy we won the game today."
Q: It looked like you might have tweaked your foot on one play in overtime?
A: “I don’t really remember. I’m just trying to be in the moment of the game. The coaches ask me how I’m doing and stuff. But obviously, I don’t want to come out of the game. I want to play. I think I really have to be smart about when I can and when I can’t.
“I think the best decision right now is to not play tomorrow (Saturday at Indiana) and try to do as much treatment as I can.
“I feel like everybody has an opinion about whether I should play, whether I shouldn’t play. There’s no right or wrong answer. As a player, I want to be out there. I don’t know. I guess it depends on the game.
“Plantar fasciitis just hurts. The only thing you can do is just rest it. There’s not a lot of time before playoffs. So what do you do? Do you sit and then when you come back, lack conditioning? The first two games I felt like I can’t breathe out there. You can emphasize all the biking and all the water cardio things. But to me, the only way I get my cardio back is playing basket ball.
“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. Obviously, if it was October or November, I would probably sit ou for six weeks. But we don’t have six weeks.
“I want to play. It’s painful. It’s no joke."