Rockets 2nd Day of practice at the NBA Restart

Posted: July 12, 2020 -- 10:51 p.m. CT

The Houston Rockets had practice number 2 Sunday evening in Orlando, Florida, as part of the NBA Restart. For the second straight day, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and new signee Luc Mbah a Moute have not arrived in Orlando, yet. Head Coach Mike D'Antoni is not concerned about their absence.

"I think we'll be fine," D'Antoni commented. "They're working at their home base. They're doing a little bit of what we're doing here right now; and, they'll be ready to go 5-on-5 when they get in here. It would be nice to have everybody here in the beginning; but, everybody is dealing with trying to do the best you can."

D'Antoni added, "We're still expecting a few days. It could be two days; 1 day; 2 days; 4 days. It'll be soon. It's not going to be long. We hope. You never know. But, we think we'll get them back in here towards the middle of the week."

D'Antoni, Danuel House Jr, and Eric Gordon spoke to the media after practice today via Zoom.

D'Antoni was asked how Eric Gordon has looked thus far in practice.

"He looks good. Hasn't missed a rep," D'Antoni answered. "He's shooting the ball extremely well. Looks strong. Fit. He's ready to go. Probably, right now, if you had to make an assessment of everybody, that's a big bonus for us."

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Gordon is happy his body is healed and healthy with no lingering issues regarding his knee. Gordon had knee surgery before the season began which caused him to miss the early part of the season.

"I've been looking forward to this," Gordon acknowledged. "I just wanted to be healthy; so, I could be myself and, for me, just to focus on basketball and what we do instead of worrying about doing rehab every day before practice. It definitely means a lot."

EG added, "Like I said, I'm in a good spot now where I don't have to worry about doing a lot of rehab and stuff. You can see I was progressively getting better a long the way during the season. I missed the first 30 games of the year. It definitely took a lot out of me. Now, I'm looking forward and looking forward to seeing what we can be."

Danuel House is glad the Rockets' staff isn't rushing the players to get into shape.

"I trust the coaches and the game plan," House said. "I think that's a really good game plan. It's a restart. Guys have been working out but it's nothing like going up and down going 5-on-5. So, by them taking their time and helping us to gradually ease into it and keep us from getting injured and people getting hurt. So, we can be able to give the fans and people across the world good basketball when it's time to start."

Eric Gordon summed up the Rockets after 2 days of practice: "Everybody knows that we're a dangerous team. We're a team that we can beat anybody. We're also a team that we can beat ourselves; so, it's all about us just finding that consistent path to where we can continue dominance. At this point, there's only 8 games. The playoffs are right around the corner. We have to be dominant from start to finish. We gotta continue that. We can't miss a beat during this time."

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