MINNEAPOLIS — A funny thing is happening to Chauncey Billups as he continues to play with an injured right wrist.
It’s getting better — in just more than a week.
Yes, there were other, much longer methods of rest and rehabilitation for his wrist, which has a torn ligament. But it appears the shortest method worked just fine. Since he returned from a week of treatment and inactivity, Billups has been on fire.
He has averaged 25.6 points, 5.6 assists and 1.4 steals in the five games since his return. He’s shooting 58.1 percent from the field, including 65 percent from 3-point range.
Before all of this, there was talk of his imminent demise — that his skills were eroding and a once all-star-caliber game was now failing him.
“The rest was good for me,” Billups said. “I couldn’t follow through on my shot, I couldn’t make a chest pass, but I’m just out there trying to give it to the team.
“And all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Man, he lost it, he’s old now.’ Yeah, I am getting older. But there’s some things that I have been blessed with that don’t get old. I can shoot the ball. I’ll be doing that when I’m 60. I might not be able to get it off at 60, but, you know what I mean? It’s crazy.
“I’m healthy now. That week off helped me out, helped my wrist. My wrist is feeling a whole lot better, and I’m just ready to go.”
But it’s not fully healed, and the fact that it can be getting better while Billups is playing on it is remarkable given the fact that when he played with the injury before, it deteriorated to the point where he needed to shut himself down.
“There’s still some things I can’t really do,” Billups said. “But as long as I can follow through and make a chest pass, everything else doesn’t really matter. If I can do (those two things), I’m good. I’m good to go.”
Highlight J.R.
In case you’re wondering: Yes, J.R. Smith steps on the court each night with the intent of making the highlight shows that night.
“Whenever I get the green light, I’m always trying to get on the highlights,” Smith said. “Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I try and go for it.”
These days, it seems Smith is a mainstay on SportsCenter. There was the two-handed dunk over San Antonio’s Gary Neal, a dunk that started when he jumped from the dotted line. There was the 360 layup past San Antonio’s Tim Duncan, a move that left even the AT&T Center crowd searching to explain what they had just seen.
Then there was Wednesday’s first-quarter dunk over Minnesota’s Darko Milicic.
“Arron (Afflalo) was posting up, and I got a good chance to cut,” Smith said. “Once I caught it, I had my mind that I was going to dunk it, but I didn’t know that Darko was going to come over and jump. So it felt great to start the game off like that.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
