Injured players could return
The Rockets on Sunday were without eight players for the fourth time in five games, getting guard
Avery Bradley back after he missed two games with a sore calf but losing forward D.J. Wilson because of health and safety protocols.
But they could have reinforcements on the way. Eric Gordon, Danuel House Jr., D.J. Augustin and Dante Exum went through a long workout before the players in Sunday’s game took the floor for warmups, showing progress from injuries that have long kept the Rockets shorthanded. Rockets coach Stephen
Silas has said that Exum is out for the season, as are
John Wall and David
Nwaba. But Silas said with seven games remaining, he hopes to have Augustin, House and Gordon back.
“They’re getting closer,” Silas said. “With (Sunday) and then two days before our next game, hopefully, we’ll get one of those guys back for Wednesday. We’re pointing probably closer towards House and D.J. Augustin than Eric.”
Gordon strained his right groin March 11 in Sacramento, the first game after the All-Star break. He was said then to be out four to six weeks but had progressed much more slowly than originally anticipated. Silas, however, said he still would like to see his veteran guard on the floor with the players that have since joined the Rockets or have been used differently.
“Obviously, we want to be smart about it with him being out so long,” Silas said. “The amount of workouts we need for him to play, we’re just not sure about that. But I would like to see him on the floor with the new guys we have. We haven’t seen him on the floor with Scoot (
Kevin Porter Jr.). We haven’t seen him on the floor with Kelly (Olynyk) and C-Wood ( Christian
Wood) together. We’re a different team than when he got injured.
“With the type of injury he had and the soreness, you don’t want him to reinjure and don’t want him to come back too soon, especially when we’re winding down on the season.”
Silas said he did not know how many games he would need to see Gordon play with players that were not on the Rockets or not playing (Porter’s first game with the Rockets was the game Gordon was hurt) to make judgments.
“It hard to say. We didn’t know what we had with Kelly Olynyk for five or six games,” Silas said. “We didn’t know what we had with K.P. (Porter) for that same amount of time. And we still don’t really know how all of that comes together with K.P. and John and Christian and Kelly and J.T. ( Jae’Sean Tate) being the cogs in the wheel that keep it all together.”
The Rockets have been hit so hard by injuries and have changed so much during the season, Tate is the only Rockets player to play on Sunday that also played against the Knicks in the previous meeting Feb. 13.
Silas recalls time as Knicks ballboy
While describing the physicality of the Knicks, Rockets coach Stephen Silas made a comparison with a Knicks team he saw up close.
“They will try to grind you down, almost like they used to be when I was a ballboy for the Knicks with Patrick (Ewing) and Oak ( Charles Oakley) and
Mark ( Jackson,)” Silas said. “They are a tough team.”
That is high praise for the current Knicks, but also pointed to another stop on Silas’ long road toward becoming a head coach.
“I was a ballboy from I think 1990 to 1992,” Silas said. “I was in high school at the time. My dad ( Paul
Silas) was an assistant coach. He was an assistant with Stu Jackson, John MacLeod and Pat Riley
(the head coach.) I would go and wipe the floor. Patrick would sweat so much I had to run out on the floor and wipe the floor underneath him between his free throws and go out and wipe out there and wipe it again.
“I saw a bunch of great games. I used to sit … on the stanchion. Some of the
(Michael) Jordan games, the one he looked like he was going baseline, turned back and dunked it (in Game 3 of the first round of the 1991 playoffs.) Playoff games where Xavier
McDaniels and Michael Jordan were going at it. So many great memories. It was so much fun every night getting the rebounds for the opposing teams. Being in the Garden was awesome.”
Knicks equipment manager Mike Martinez was a ballboy with Silas. Silas and Ewing became close when they were on the staff together in Charlotte, though Ewing recalled Silas’ beginnings.
“Patrick and I used to laugh about that all the time,” Silas said. “He was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m coaching with you.’ I would make him feel old. We used to talk about it quite a bit.”