Christian Wood trash-talked his way through practice, seeking to get his struggling team back where it was before he was hurt.
The Rockets are not over the injuries that helped send them to a 13-game losing streak. Wood is not cleared to play in games. But with everything he did Wednesday, going through the entirety of practice for the first time since spraining his right ankle Feb. 4, and everything he said, it was clear he is close and the Rockets might finally have a way out of their tailspin.
“I felt great,” Wood said. “A few more days, and I’ll be back. It’s been tough. I’ve been lifting a lot of weights. It’s been a grind for me. This rehab has been way harder than the games. It’s actually very, very different. I’ve never been hurt and out this long. I’m ready to be back and help this team out and get us out of this slump.”
If the All-Star break was supposed to give the Rockets a chance to start over, to leave the frustrations and losing skid behind, the realities of the season still won’t let go.
There is no do-over. They are still in 14th place. Worse, they are still waiting to be whole, even with signs they are getting closer.
Wood will need as much as another week of conditioning to be cleared to play after the long layoff, coach Stephen Silas said, though Wood indicated he hopes to be back as soon as Sunday.
Danuel House Jr. remains out with a sore knee. David Nwaba has not had progress on his strained right wrist while hoping to avoid surgery. Eric Gordon remains questionable to play against the Kings on Thursday.
There are even questions remaining about healthy players, with guard Victor Oladipo uncertain to play Friday in the second half of the back-to-back, when the Rockets go from facing the Kings in Sacramento to the front-running Jazz in Salt Lake City in Utah’s first game after the break.
Still, the Rockets can at least see reasons for optimism.
“We have a lot of guys that like to compete,” guard John Wall said. “We’re not guys that are just going to bow down and accept losing. We know we’re on a losing streak, but we look at it as it is a 0-0 start for us in the second half of the season and judge ourselves off that.”
Much will depend on how the Rockets rebuild themselves when Wood returns. Wall said Wood “looked great.” Though there are other concerns, with the absence of House a greater issue with Nwaba certain to miss time, much of the Rockets’ plans and hopes point to Wood.
“Having ‘C-Wood’ out there for some minutes made it better and let us see what our team could be when he is there, the different dynamic he can bring,” Wall said. “He made it more competitive, more chippiness, brought some firepower we need. It was fun. We probably won’t have him out there (Thursday), but the most important thing is to try to translate that to a game and try to get off this skid.”
The Rockets’ injury issues have been so pervasive that when Silas sought to spend his break studying video, he could find little that applies to the team he hopes to have.
Wood, Oladipo and Wall have played together in just three games. Silas mostly watched video from the last weeks of the season and practice, addressing especially the issues with offensive execution and pick-and-roll coverages that were most glaring.
“I’ve never had this before,” he said Wednesday. “Never. Improvement would be getting healthy and getting our whole group on the floor. Today in practice it was good to have almost everybody out there. It was good to see those guys play together. You forget how important guys are to our group … the continuity and the chemistry between our starting group, most of all John, Victor and Christian playing together.
“When we’re whole and we have our full complement of players, I feel really good about this team. I just do.”
In some respects, that was the message Wood was determined to deliver. He said waiting through the end of his rehab could be the toughest part. But he took a significant step toward a return he hopes will be the start of a Rockets turnaround.
“I got guys riled up in practice purposely, just because I felt like we’re a better team than what we’ve showed,” Wood said. “When we’re healthy, we’re a hard team to beat. Me, Vic, E.G. and John have only played two games together. We need everybody for the second-half push.
“The chip on my shoulder gets even bigger. I wasn’t an All-Star. My team lost 13 games in a row. I didn’t like watching us lose games that I thought we could have won. I just want to go out there and help my team win games and try to make a playoff push.”
jonathan.feigen@chron.com
twitter.com/jonathan_feigen
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