NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Peja Stojakovic sat out his third straight game with back soreness on Tuesday night when the New Orleans Hornets hosted the Los Angeles Lakers.
Backup point guard Antonio Daniels, who twisted his knee during the Hornets' previous game on Saturday, also missed the game.Hornets coach Byron Scott said Daniels' swelling has gone down and characterized his status as day-to-day.
Scott did not want to guess whether Stojakovic would return for the Hornets' Christmas Day game at Orlando or home game Friday night against Houston.
"We're not going to push him to try to play," Scott said. "We want to make sure that, in his mind, that he's fine, that he's comfortable, that he'll come back and give us everything he's got."
Stojakovic missed most of 2006-07 because of surgery to remove a disk fragment in his lower back, but came back strong last season, starting 77 games.
He has started 20 games this season, averaging 13.1 points. He is shooting 43 percent from 3-point range and leads the team in 3-pointers with 53.
With Stojakovic out, Scott inserted Devin Brown into the starting lineup at shooting guard against Los Angeles.
Stojakovic, 31, is now in his 11th NBA season, but Scott said he wasn't concerned that Stojakovic may be wearing down.
"I'm not real worried right now. I'll start worrying a little bit more when the trainer starts to worry," Scott said. "Right now he said it's just a little soreness, something they expected with the surgery, so right now we're just doing everything to make sure when he comes back that he's healthy so we won't have a reoccurrence of it."
