PHILADELPHIA -- Stephon Marbury participated in the New York Knicks' shootaround Friday, a day after his father's funeral, and was expected to play against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Donald Marbury was taken from Madison Square Garden to a hospital during halftime of the Knicks' loss to Phoenix on Sunday night. He died of a heart problem before the game ended.
Twenty-four hours after burying his father, Stephon Marbury sat in a locker room at the Wachovia Center and preparing himself to play here tonight against the Sixers.
"To be honest, I don't want to be here," Marbury said, "but it's something I gotta do. It's my job. It's something I love to do. I just want to get back into the swing of things.
"It's tough," Marbury added, "but my father's in the ground now, there' nothing else I can do now but grieve."
Marbury spoke to a few reporters for almost 10 minutes and expressed a wide range of emotions. He did say he had no problems with the Knicks not telling him that his father had gone to the hospital. He said his father would have wanted him to stay in the game.
"He would have wanted me to continue to play, even when he was in the hospital," Marbury said. "My father was telling my brothers that he was tired, that he wanted to go to sleep. Right now, my father would have been telling me, 'Go play, I'm all right.' You know what I'm saying? The way how everything happened was the way it was supposed to."
Isiah Thomas, who was among the mourners who packed Thursday's funeral for Donald Marbury, said Marbury on Thursday night made the decision to play. Marbury will start and play his usual minutes.
"His grieving will go on for a while," Thomas said. "Hopefully the games will be therapeutic for him. We'll just deal with it for as long as we have to."
Eddy Curry, who sat out against the Nets because of a sprained left ankle, had the ankle taped at the shootaround. His availability for Friday night would be a game-time decision.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: ESPN.com
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