Wizards' Harrington aiming for return next week

Wizards' Al Harrington is used to the view from the bench, but he's growing tired of just sitting around.

Unfortunately, his knee soreness will bind him to the sideline for the ninth consecutive game Friday when Wizards play the Pacers in Indiana, reports Michael Lee of the Washington Post.

“I don’t know where I am right now or the next time I’m going to play. Hopefully soon,” Harrington said this week. “I did everything humanly possible to play, but I had a little bit of bad luck. My knee’s feeling a lot better. Hopefully, if not this week, next week for sure.”

Lee notes the Washington bench has developed a consistency in the Wizards' last six game, but it's not a desirable one. The reserves have failed to reach double digits in points per game four times in that stretch and they're dead last in the league in scoring (18.9). They're the only group in the league with fewer than 22 points from the bench.

“We’ve got to get a little bit better production out of our bench, so that we can rest [the starters] a little bit more,” Harrington said. He's hoping his return will be the catalyst to help take the pressure of the starting lineup.

Despite the lack of production off the bench, the Wizards still won five of their last six.

"I don’t think we can survive a whole season with these type of minutes. that’s something we’re going to have to work on internally but we know what we facing. We know what we got to do and we got to work with it.”