To Dion Waiters there is only one way to get back to what he once was for the Miami Heat.
"I think playing is the biggest thing for me. I don't think practice can help me," he said ahead of Sunday's game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
With the Heat bypassing practice Thursday before this two-game trip and then also given the day off Saturday, the opportunities for Waiters to show he is capable of more have been limited.
He also missed Friday night's victory over the Cavaliers because of what was listed as a migraine.
"Normally when I get 'em, they're bad," he said, "pretty much got to sit in the dark, really can't be in light. So the whole time I was just sitting in the dark."
He said the absence was not a setback.
"It's tough, but it happens. Things like that happen," he said. "It wasn't severe or anything like that, so it's not like I missed a decent amount of time. Things like that you can't control."
For now, he said he is controlling what he can control, even if he doesn't see quite the same correlation as the Heat staff.
"You do extra stuff, you do extra conditioning. You ride the bike, you do stuff like that," he said of this first month back after being sidelined for a year by ankle surgery. "You stay sharp. You go back into the gym. You work, put that work in, get that conditioning up, you lift. You pretty much know as a pro athlete what you need to do to get yourself back.
"But none of that, for me, means as much as playing. That's what I need to be doing."
