After taking part in his first full-speed practice in nearly four months, Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas was encouraged at the progress he's made and on the state of his conditioning. Coach Eddie Jordan said it was good to have Agent Zero back on the court, and while it remains uncertain as to when he'll be back in game-shape, his impact was felt immediately.

Excerpts from their interviews follow:

"Gilspeak"

On his first practice:

"It felt good. Surprising about my wind. I wasn't as tired as I thought it was gonna be. But I was just excited to get out there and play with the guys again.

On how his knee felt:

"It's fine so far. We'll see how it acts tomorrow after a day of rest. So we'll see how it feels tomorrow."

Eddie had said that while practice was full speed, Gilbert's teammates did go quite full force at him.

Here's Gilbert's take on that:

[Laughs] "I was going hard at them! You know, it's just one of those practices where they're trying to get ready for [Orlando] tomorrow and I'm trying to get my wind and get back the rhythm I once had. So, both sides were give and take. Nobody set a hard screen on me, and [rookie] Nick [Young] is always gonna try to take me one-on-one, but we've been playing one-on-one every day, so that was the easy part."

On gaining confidence on his knee and not letting a fear of another injury hold him back:

"Little by little, the more you play, the more you interact on the floor, the more you watch. Just to go out there and do the things you're used to doing. I made a move on Nick and was like, 'OK.' You know, just get your confidence back little by little."

On the next step:

"It's step by step. Today's one practice, just try to get enough practices under my belt before I step on that floor.

On whether he's set a new return date:

"No. Truthfully, I don't think I'm gonna make it back before Caron [Butler]. I really don't know. It's not, my knee feels good now, I go out and play tomorrow. It's not one of those deals."

No return date has been set for Butler, but Arenas said his teammate's hip might feel good, allowing him to just step back on the court, but it will take more than that for himself to return.

On if today's practice was more rigorous than his solo training:

"No, not really. There was a point I was doing a lot more, and I was mad I wasn't on the floor, because I was doing more off the floor than the team was. So today was easier, but it was nine other players on the floor, it wasn't just me."

"Eddiespeak"

"Gil had a good first practice ... Caution is a relative term. He's ready for full contact. So it's sort of up to the coaching staff and myself to construct practice to limiting some contact. ...

"We had a limit of no pick and roll screens on Gil, sort of blind screens that you can't see. But everything else was pretty normal. ... He's probably going to have to have a lot of good practices. It's going to be a longer process. ... But I thought he handed well. ...

"What was good was, Gil brings energy. His passing was phenomenal. Some easy baskets we got because some of that was the defense always gears towards Gil, leaving other people open. But the way he found people with his passes was just phenomenal. His team got a lot of easy practices and not just to Antawn [Jamison], but to [Oleksiy Pecherov], to [Dominic McGuire], to some of the younger guys. It was just to everybody."

-- Mike Jones