The Rockets in Team Practice (March 29)

The Rockets had their last team practice at the Toyota Centre in the morning of March 29 for 2 hours before departing for San Antonio to start their road trip of 5 games in the next 8 days.

http://sports.sohu.com/20080330/n255986340.shtml

http://sports.sohu.com/20080330/n255987181.shtml

The 2 Sohu.com articles above basically covered what happened during the team practice.

In Summary

• Tracy McGrady returned for the team practice after a day's rest, and went thru the walk-thru and scrimmage but retreated early back to the changing room when the team practice went open for the media.
  
• Players voluntarily stayed behind for more shootaround practice. And Jack Sikma had a special clinic for Deke Mutombo, with him role-playing as Tim Duncan and Uncle Mutumbo defending on him.
  
• Carl Landry had taken off his brace supporter from his injured knee.
  
• Tracy McGrady was still feeling the mysterious pain on his left shoulder, but he said he knew how important the game meant to Rockets' final seeding/positioning in the playoff, and he definitely needs to play. He said: "I will continue my therapy, and I will have to take some medicine (painkiller?), but there is no time for rest. Definitely I will have to play."
  
• He rebuked the media/experts/fans about him being soft. He said: "I'm not soft; definitely not. You can only play if you can play. I would like to see how many players can still play after such back injury that I went thru; if they have experienced the kind of pain I went thru with my back all these years, they will understand."
  
• As to the game versus San Antonio Spurs, Tracy McGrady said: "We need to keep reducing our own turnovers; we need to control the tempo/flow of our O&D; we need to make on-the-fly changes in our offense options as they are such a great defensive team; we need to curb the penetration of Manu Ginobili, and watch out on their perimeter 3-pointer shooting; and we have to rely on a 41-year-old to slow down Tim Duncan."
  
• On playing without Yao Ming and he being the offense spearhead, he said: "I will still keep scoring, and keep making my team mates better. There is nothing new about what we will be doing; we will just continue to do what we had been doing so well so far."
  
• On learning the shock defeat of the LA Lakers to the lowly Memphis Grizzlies on their own home court, he said: "I'm extremely shocked; yes extremely shocked. This tells you how tough, intense and competitive the Western Conference is. At this intense stage of the regular season, you can't allow other teams to do such thing to you on your home soil. That kind of setback just hurts."

 

Now comes the photos part........

 

MORE photos............