Not good!, this is the type of thing that can linger on for a while, a la Kenyon Martin last season http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/3422265 T-Mac might miss opener Knee pain has Rockets star on the bench By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle OKLAHOMA CITY - The only way the end of the Rockets preseason could have been a worse would have been if it ended with Tracy McGrady hurt. Then the Rockets' fortunes went from worse to bad. Thursday began with McGrady staying behind in Houston with tendinitis in both knees that had Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy for the first time openly fretting might keep him out of next weeks season-opener. Then the Rockets completed their preseason schedule by blowing a 22-point lead and losing to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets when P.J. Brown put in an offensive rebound in the last second for an 89-88 win. How much worse things might be and how dire McGradys condition is will probably be unclear for several days. McGrady missed his second consecutive preseason game, and Van Gundy was asked at Ford Center if McGrady will be ready to play next Wednesday against the Sacramento Kings. "I'm not sure about that," he said. "It's not just the knees. It's the knees, it's the quads, it's the hips, which ties back in to the knees again. I know people think I'm doing it (holding out McGrady) as a precaution; I'm not doing it as a precaution. I'm doing it because he cant go. There's nothing precautionary about it. We've got to try to get a handle on it now. I don't know how long he'll be out." Rockets trainer Keith Jones, however, said McGrady made enough progress on Thursday for him to be confident that he'll be fine. "I would hope he would play Wednesday," Jones said. "He's doing a lot better. I think he's going to feel pretty good. He's feeling better today than he was yesterday. It's tendinitis. There's nothing structurally wrong. It's swelling. He got treatment today and said he felt a lot better than he has." The Rockets generally seemed more concerned with how they have been playing than whether McGrady would be back next Wednesday. McGrady went through Tuesday's practice, though teammates said he clearly struggled. That was as obvious on Sunday, when he took just three shots and missed them all against the Washington Wizards. But teammates also said they believed McGrady would be ready next week. "Tracy stayed back to take care of his body," Rockets forward Juwan Howard said. "He's a gamer. I think we all feel confident he'll be ready to go Nov. 2." Less certain is how ready the rest of the Rockets will be after Thursday's second-half collapse. They were unable to cut off the penetration into the lane by Speedy Claxton off the dribble or on pick-and-rolls. The drives allowed the Hornets — who were displaced to Oklahoma City by Hurricane Katrina — to pick the Rockets apart at the 3-point line where they made 7 of 11 second-half 3s. With their lead gone, the Hornets increasing their defensive pressure and 15,063 screaming as the Rockets have not heard in any preseason game this month, the Rockets cracked. With that, they fell apart in the areas that plagued them through last season: keeping guards from penetrating and handling pressure. "It's disappointing to again crack emotionally," Van Gundy said. "(Acting like) everything was the referee's fault, overreacting. Going back to last year, it's been an issue. The ability to play with poise under pressure is critical. "You don't take a fourth quarter technical (as Jon Barry did with 4:09 left and the Rockets down by one). You don't take the fouls that we took. Those things bother me as much as physical mistakes. "Those may be correctable. I wonder sometimes if we can play with the poise you need." Offensively, the Rockets have not looked better than they did in the first half on Thursday, when they made 55.6 percent of their shots and led 47-33. But even then, they were unable to keep the Hornets out of the lane until the shots the Hornets missed through much of the first half began to fall. "The second half, you can call it what you want to," guard David Wesley said. "You can call it the preseason. But you lose a 22-point lead, I don't care who you're playing, where you're playing, that (stinks.)" In the last test before the regular season, that was troubling enough. So while McGrady could not play on Thursday and the Rockets did not play well enough to win, they could only keep faith that both will change by Wednesday's opener. "I assume he's going to be there," Wesley said. "Coach is probably more concerned than any of us. We assume he'll be there." jonathan.feigen@chron.com
Can someone with some knowledge of tendinitis comment on what this may mean for the season? Is this likely to be a recurring problem or will a little bit of rest, ice, and aspirin see him fit as a fiddle down the road?
How can I treat tendonitis? Tendonitis treatment must begin by avoiding aggravating movements. This may mean taking a break from a favorite activity for a period of time, but this is a necessary step to allow the inflamed tendon to heal. It is also recommended in tendonitis treatment to try alternative activities; for example, if you are a runner who is experiencing knee pain due to tendonitis, try incorporating swimming into your workout schedule. Inflammation can also be treated with some medications, including the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as Motrin or Advil. These medications can be very helpful treatments both in relief of pain and in reduction of the inflammation. As always, before starting a medication, check first with your doctor. Other means of tendonitis treatment include icing the injured site, ultrasound therapy, and many alternative treatments. Often a trip to the physical therapist can be helpful. Working to stretch and strengthen muscles in the area of the tendonitis can be helpful, and the therapist may have other ideas to help with your situation. As stated earlier, surgery is occasionally needed, but only after these non-surgical tendonitis treatment measures have failed to work. Are there ways to avoid tendonitis? The key to avoiding problems such as tendonitis and bursitis is to slowly increase the intensity of your exercise, vary the types of activities you perform, and try not to cycle between periods of activity and inactivity. People who tend to experience tendonitis are seasonal exercisers, who focus too much on one activity. When you begin to experience early symptoms of tendonitis, back off from the aggravating activity, and try something new. Will tendonitis return after treatment? Not necessarily, but it certainly may. If you do experience tendonitis, you are more likely to have symptoms again down the road, but with an intelligent approach to your exercise or activity routine, this problem can often be avoided.
Its not the 2nd that bothers me. Its the rigorous 82 game schedule that is waiting for a seemingly already fatigued body that really concerns me. Think about how lucky we were last year with T-Mac and Yao both remaining healthy the entire season. Alot of other teams lost some of their MVP's to injury for a stretch. I wonder how effective this team would be without ours.
I didn't get to watch the Rockets v Utah game on Wed night but was T-Mac at the game or did he go to the world series?
I am sure he will be fine for the season opener. However, iam a bit worried that he might have to miss some games through in regular season. The only good thing i can say is that the Rockets have enough depth this season that even if T-mac misses 5-10 games then they wont be an automatic losses. DA can fill in at SF and with Swift and Alston also here I think they could still beat the average teams in this league.
I agree. The silver lining to all of this is that maybe T-Mac will miss 5 to 10 games and will be that much more fresh come playoff time. He played A LOT of minutes last year.
T-Mac was NOT healthy all of last season, he had the same problem with knee tendinitis that he's having now, as well as back pains, toe injury among other things. He just played through them, that's all. The thing that worries me is that we just came out of the off-season, and I thought the tendinitis in his knees would be gone by now, but it's already bothering him again without the season even starting. I am worried, very worried
if anyone can convey this message to Tmac: Use magnetic knee braces. I had tendinitis and the braces worked like a charm! There is no actual scientific data backing it up...but it has helped me as well as allot of other people I know.
