The Chicago Bulls injury situation may be lightening with Drew Gooden believing he may play tonight against the Sacramento Kings and Kirk Hinrich saying he could be participating in full practices by the end of the week, the Chicago Sun-Times are reporting.

Hinrich has been out with a torn ligament in his right thumb since November 7, while Gooden has missed the last 8 games with an ankle injury.

'If I feel like I did in practice [Monday], I'm going to play,'' Gooden said after an MRI exam showed no further damage. ''I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that there's no extra swelling or added pain when I wake up. I didn't overexert it or make it any worse. Hopefully, I loosened it up a little bit.

''I'll see where it is in pregame warm-up. It's tough. I twisted it twice in a month. It's something I'm going to be really cautious of -- extra tape, strengthening, doing a lot of preventative measures to try and not let this happen again.''

Via Chicago Sun-Times

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