Forward Rasheed Wallace sat out of his morning’s shoot-around at Madison Square Garden, instead getting treatment from strength and conditioning coach Arnie Kander on his sore left ankle.

There’s still a chance he could play tonight against the Knicks. Neither Wallace nor Pistons coach Flip Saunders would count him out.

“It’s 50-50,” Saunders said. “Either he plays or he doesn’t.”

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My guess is he’ll sit because the Pistons can then get Theo Ratliff some meaningful minutes and begin to see what their newly-signed big man has to offer. Ratliff said he’d be ready to go if that happens tonight.

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A funny thing ended the media session of shoot around. Pistons rookie Arron Afflalo missed the bus to the Garden because the departure time had changed and he didn’t get the memo. He had to cab over on his own. Team security guru Jerry Hendon waited by the elevators for Afflalo to appear. When he did, he told him solemnly, “Coach said he doesn’t want you to come in. He said to just go back to the hotel.”

Afflalo looked totally deflated. He asked, “Really, coach Saunders said that?”

“Yup,’ Jerry said, pulling him back toward the elevator. “He said just go on back.”

A few seconds passed before Jerry finally cracked up, letting Afflalo know it was all a joke.

Source: freep.com