Knee Healing Well for Milton-Jones

Forward DeLisha Milton-Jones of the Sparks tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee in February, and it was initially thought that she would miss the season.

The injury is commonly repaired through surgery, followed by lengthy rehabilitation.

Milton-Jones passed on the surgery, however, and is practicing with the team. She says she owes her rapid recovery to an Egyptian massage therapist in Austria who was all thumbs, literally, in mending her injury.

“His name is Muhammad Khalifa,” Milton-Jones said Monday during the Sparks’ media day at Loyola Marymount.

She said that while she was considering surgery the president of the Russian team she plays for in the winter called and said: “Here’s an option for you. A lot of the national team players in Russia, when they have injuries, they go to this guy.”

So, Jones traveled to Austria to meet with Khalifa, who told her his hands were so sensitive, he could put them on a table and feel life in the wood. That gave her pause, she said.

“But I didn’t think it would hurt me to try because he couldn’t make it any worse,” she added.

She underwent two 90-minute sessions with Khalifa, who dug deeply into the front and back of the knee and surrounding tissue with his thumbs, manipulating the ligament and surrounding area.

“It was like he had moved your kneecap over and gone inside,” Milton-Jones said. “He was mashing so hard, and you couldn’t see his thumb, it was so deep into the muscle. I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it through this.’ I started crying. I can take pain, but this was out of this world.”

But after the sessions, she was able to stand up and jump around, she said, “and it didn’t feel like my knee was going to give out.”

Khalifa told her the healing time would be five weeks but that there was something else she could do to speed the process.

“For the first two weeks, he tells you to put this special cheese on [the injury],” Milton-Jones said. “I put it all over the leg at night and wrapped it up. The cheese soaks up the inflammation that might be deep inside there.

“And it’s true. In the beginning stages, when I would take the cheese off in the morning it would be very crumbly, because whatever it took out had dried it up. At the end of the two weeks, the cheese was still wet because there was no inflammation. I just look on in amazement.”

The Sparks have been amazed too. Trainer Sandee Teruya said Milton-Jones has not had any swelling in training camp and had full range of motion. Coach Michael Cooper is thrilled at getting back one of the league’s best defenders who averaged a career-high 13.4 points in 2003. But he is not rushing Milton-Jones back into action and wants her to play with a knee brace.

“Her knee is strong,” Cooper said, “but she also has her brace. That there makes me feel more comfortable.”