--F Shane Battier practiced for the first time this season, reported some soreness the next day but no complications and looked forward to another practice to really push himself and test his left foot. That, however, brought a problem. The Rockets don't have a practice for a week. He felt he needed a full-court, full-speed test, the kind difficult to simulate working out with trainers. But he could be ready to play for the first time this season before the Rockets are ready to give him that kind of workout.
"I would like another practice," Battier said. "Unfortunately, our schedule is not really conducive to having another practice so I don't know. "It was sore. It was normal soreness from the first real action in a while. Thankfully, I don't think I have soreness in the place it was injured initially. I'm going to see if the places I have soreness is a possibility."
--The Rockets had seemed to be making significant offensive strides. The Rockets had failed to hit 40 percent of their shots in four of the first seven games. In the next four, they made 45.5 percent of their attempts, which for the season would rank seventh in the NBA. They had their best offensive game of the season on Monday, making more than half of those shots for the first time in a game this season, hitting on 50.6 percent against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Against the Mavericks, however, they fell back to their early-season form, making just 11.8 percent of their shots in the third quarter and 37.2 percent overall.
"It comes and goes," Luis Scola said. "We'll have a couple of good games and then we'll fall back off. I think we need to think about that and be constant because we can't have this up and down all the time. Hopefully, we'll become more solid in the future because I think that is a big part of a championship team."
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I thought we were just discombobulated. Whether it was Yao (Ming) being out, Ron (Artest) missing practice yesterday, Tracy (McGrady) -- it just seemed we were out of sync completely in this game." -- Coach Rick Adelman.
