Josh Howard will miss tonight’s game against New Jersey and could be out through the weekend or even longer due to soreness in his surgically repaired left knee.

“We’ll probably reevaluate him on Monday,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders tonight prior to facing the Nets on Friday. “We might sit him out for a little bit. He’s just got some soreness in that knee, that area so we don’t want to take any chances with it.”

Howard has been in and out of the Wizards lineup over the last week. He played the first half in games at Indiana on Dec. 31 and Philadelphia on Wednesday, but missed Washington’s New Year’s Day game against New Orleans. Prior to that, Howard had played seven games in a row starting with his return against Miami on Dec. 18, averaging 7.9 points and 3.2 rebounds.

Prior to shootaround this morning, Saunders was asked if Howard’s situation had gotten worse.

“He’s coming off an ACL,” said Saunders. “It’s things that you know are going to happen after the surgery, and you’re going to get some soreness in it. He had an MRI done, nothing came up negative, but it’s just more the soreness and tendonitis in there so you don’t want to do things where all of a sudden he starts favoring it, then all of a sudden he hurts something else. It’s more precautionary than anything else.”