Didn't have to tell me twice.

I bolted in expecting it to be loud in the gym, but it was real quiet. Players were all laying on their backs on the court, going through stretching exercises that the coaches barked out. Kelvin Cato and Maurice Taylor joked something amongst themselves and started laughing.

I noticed Glen Rice wasn't with the rest of the team. He was sitting out again - stretching with a trainer with an exercise ball and then later did a lot on the exercise bike.

After more stretching, the team started running transition drills. In fact the next three or four sets of drills all were the Rockets attacking the basket. Give and go full court transition drills. Also a drill for full court passes that Rudy really wanted to get right -- he didn't want the player sprinting down court to have to break stride at all.

"Give me two good ones!" said Rudy, hoping to close the drill.

Cato threw a full court bomb that slowed Steve Goodrich down some in transition.

"Not good enough," barked Rudy.

Kelvin redeemed himself though, hitting a streaking Francis, in full stride, for a slam.

Then it got interesting. Rudy broke the squad up in three teams, and they started going through the steps of this motion offense Rudy is trying to implement. Rudy spent all of his time with the squad of Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Bostjan Nachbar, Kenny Thomas and Goodrich.

Keep in mind there was no defense as they went through this (the defense was only imaginary), and this was just what they were running in practice (I need to see them do this in a game before I'll believe it), but every single player is moving in this offense.

When Francis cuts to the right, he dishes it inside to KT in the post. Francis will immediately bolt towards the basket, to the right of KT, and swing under and around to the other side. The other three players, Nachbar, Goodrich and Mobley, would all be cutting or swinging.

If it gets whipped back out, the ball immediately goes around to find the open man.

Mobley missed a few steps, or places he needed to be. Rudy would stop to instruct him, or Francis did as well. One thing I will say about Francis - he takes practice seriously. He works very hard and he was going 100% in this drill. From the first pass to the fake picks he was supposed to set, he tried to make sure he hit his marks at full speed, as well as making sure the other players hit them as well.

The highlight of the afternoon though came in the shooting drills, and that's when the rookie wowed them.

Assistant coach Mike Wells ("Wellsy") was running a drill with Francis, Nachbar and another player. He would feed them bullet passes as they hit locations, and they would immediately fire up the shot. At first, Nachbar took feeds from both sides of the top of the key, about 17-18 feet out (just inside the top of the key). He was on fire, hitting 11 of the 12 shots he took from there.

Then it moved out to the baseline. From atleast 18 feet out, Nachbar would put up a baseline shot, then bolt immediately to the wing from about 18, take a feed, put up the shot, then move back to the baseline. He took 14 shots and made all of them. I watched every single shot and was amazed how they looked identical, from wherever he shot. Dude has an outstanding touch - his ball just gets nothing but net, or barely grazes the front iron.

After he did that, he had the rest of the team's attention. I would watch as Moochie, Griffin, KT ... everyone, would sit or stand on the sidelines, stop what they were doing and watch Nachbar shoot.

Francis is a hell of a competitor, and he wasn't going to take the 14 straight lying down. So he yelled out that he needed to make 15 in a row, and everyone watched.

He missed his first, and a lot of the squad, led by Mobley, erupted in to laughter.

"No, no, no!" yelled Francis. "It starts when I make one."

Steve missed a few others, but not many. I didn't catch how many, but he probably reeled off 8 straight of his own. But Nachbar was the show. They moved out to the NBA three-point line, taking two shots from each of the Around the World hot spots.

He nailed all 10 shots.

Nachbar had hit 35 of his last 36 shots and I watched every single one. Granted, there was no defense, but this kid can shoot lights out. He went 8-13 from NBA three around the world on the next go, proving he can miss some, but he was certainly in a zone this time.

Things Noticed

• A reporter from the University of Michigan, doing a story on alumn Rudy T, was at practice, and in fact went to lunch with Rudy after the session. When he introduced himself to Rudy, the coach smiled and busted out in to the Michigan fight song.
• The rookie that was invited to camp, Sonny Watson, has the build of a successful NBA center, but you see his weakness once he puts up the ball. His form is terrible and the first shot I saw him put up was a 10-foot airball.
• From the Detroit News, a rumor was floating around that the Rockets, along with the Mavericks and Spurs, were interested in acquiring Chinese center Mengke Bateer, who was recently shipped from the Nuggets to the Pistons. I spoke with someone there on that, who told me that rumor was probably "more Detroit than Houston" and that it just didn't make sense for the Rockets to have 4 players who strictly play center (since Cato won't be moved and Jason Collier can't be moved). In fact, later today the Spurs did acquire Bateer.
• While Cuttino Mobley may not be nailing everything in the motion offense right away, he is still nailing his shots. Cat has hit several 17-foot jumpers in drills with defenders.