"T.J. Ford was stuck, with nowhere to go.

The Indiana Pacers failed to trade the veteran point guard before the deadline in late February. He declined to take a buyout for the remaining portion of his $8.5 million contract after the one team he thought would sign him -- Miami -- went in another direction.

The low point for Ford came when he wasn't traveling with the Pacers to road games.

Now, more than a month later and after a significant amount of time talking with his family, Ford hopes he'll get one more opportunity to help the Pacers.

Ford went from being an afterthought to the third point guard thanks to rookie Lance Stephenson, who was recently demoted after violating unspecified team rules.

"You get down, but at some point you have to pick yourself back up, and I think that's where the strength comes from," Ford said. "The support system I had from family, especially this season, made a big difference."

Ford, playing Sunday for the first time in 38 games, went scoreless in four minutes in the loss to the New York Knicks.

Interim coach Frank Vogel said he plans to give Ford more minutes in Wednesday's season finale at Orlando.

"I stayed motivated," Ford, 28, said. "The biggest thing is wanting to play and understanding that I still feel I have a lot of game left. I didn't know if I was going to have an opportunity to showcase that."

Vogel doesn't plan to move Ford ahead of A.J. Price in the rotation to be starter Darren Collison's backup.

"T.J. understands that he's the third point guard, likely won't play unless we have injuries or severe foul trouble," Vogel said. "He's just going to try to get a little bit of his conditioning back, a little bit of his rhythm back. Timing may take a little longer, but we'll just do the best we can."

Ford is just happy to be playing as a rocky three-year stint with the Pacers comes to a close. He'll be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Ford lost his starting position to Earl Watson and Jarrett Jack in each of the past two seasons. He never had a chance to compete for the job this season because Darren Collison was named the starter last summer after the Pacers acquired him from New Orleans."