Sunday was a rare road off-day for the Hawks, as we arrived in Houston late Saturday night in advance of a Tuesday night tilt against the Rockets. It was a nice treat for the team, who originally had practiced scheduled for the afternoon but had it cancelled by Mike Woodson and the Hawks coaching staff. It's little breaks like this that help keep a team fresh during the marathon of a season, and it also helps to engender positive feelings between a coaching staff and its players.

Most of the guys used the day to relax, watch some football, and do a little window shopping at the mall ("We ate at Cheesecake Factory," Al Horford told me, "It's Bibby's favorite place."). Maurice Evans flew his father and some of his family in and spent the day with them.

"This was a good trip to have them come in," said Evans. "With the Houston and San Antonio games so close together, it was a way for them to get to see me play a couple games without too much traveling."

Monday was back to a more normal schedule, as the team practiced for a couple hours at the Rockets facility inside the Toyota Center. The team was ready to get back down to business, but the day wasn't without its moments of hilarity.

Hawks coach Mike Woodson played for the Rockets for a few seasons in the late 80's, and as the team headed towards the practice facility he made sure to point himself out in the team pictures that line the hallway leading to the court. The players, never shy to rib each other or their coaches, made sure to poke fun of Woodson's shorts and the team's improvement once he left (the Rockets won 41 games in his last full season, then won 52 the year after).

But the joking didn't stop there. The Rockets have several retired jerseys on display in their practice court, so some of the Hawks support staff took it upon themselves to add Woodson's name to the list as best they could (see right).

Fortunately Woodson had a good sense of humor about the whole thing.

Once the fun was over an intense practice ensued, as the team prepares for a tough match-up with the Yao Ming-led Rockets. Al Horford, who sat out Saturday's game at Dallas, sat today's practice out as well to continue treatment on his injured ankle. I asked Al about it afterwards and he assured me he will be ready to go once the game starts tomorrow night. That was good to hear, because the Hawks will need all the frontcourt help they can get against Yao.

I asked Josh Smith after practice about what it's like to face Yao, and he said that you never really get over how tall Ming is (he also talked about what a travesty it is that Texas isn't in the BCS championship, but that's neither here nor there). Horford said pretty much the same thing, and agreed with Speedy Claxton's assessment to my question of what is the best defense against him: "Hope he misses."

After we got back from the arena, I sat down with Voice of the Hawks Steve Holman to record this week's BasketBlog Weekly Podcast, and we spent a good amount of time talking about life on the road.

It was interesting to hear Holman talk about the perils of the road (and he should know, he's been traveling with the team for 24 seasons), saying that the downtime in between practices and games can be just as exhausting as the physical stress of playing. Holman says he tries to get out of the hotel to walk around as much as he can, though that is much easier in cities like Chicago or New York than Houston.

So far I've managed to avoid a lot of downtime, as I met up with some college friends who live in the area yesterday, but just working from the hotel room for much of the day today I can see what he means.

I'll get some preview-y stuff up tomorrow,  as the Hawks look to snap a 10-game losing streak here in H-town.