火箭笔记：欧文澳门赛只打一场，伊迪复出，乌度卡执教前景与恩格兰德投篮改造

Making his return to action after a 19-month absence in which he recovered from an ACL tear, Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving will play in just one of the team’s two games vs. Houston in Macao this weekend, head coach Dusty May told reporters, including Christian Clark of The Athletic. According to May, the team hasn’t determined whether Irving will suit up on Friday or Sunday.

“We will have a limited roster,” May said on Thursday. “Even with Kyrie, he is going to play one game here. We still haven’t decided which one. Based on how his body feels, especially with the jet lag and things like that. It’s still inconclusive at this time. We are working on different lineup combinations. But as of now, we are still not sure.”

When Irving first tore his ACL in March 2025, there was a belief that he might make it back during the second half of the 2025/26 season. But with the Mavericks well out of playoff contention, there was no need to bring him back down the stretch, so he and the team decided to postpone his return to the fall.

Irving revealed on Thursday that there was another reason why his recovery period was extended, telling reporters that he suffered a Grade 2 calf strain last December. The veteran guard was unable to move forward in his rehab process for roughly eight weeks as a result of that injury.

“It pushed my timeline back even more,” Irving said, per Clark. “I had to take my time to heal.”

Here’s more from around the Southwest:

• Grizzlies head coach Tumoas Iisalo conceded that Zach Edey was “very rusty” on Wednesday in his first game action since December 2025, but just having the third-year center back on the floor after ankle issues limited him to 11 appearances last season was a big win for the organization, writes Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. “What it’s been, like nine months?” Edey said after the game. “I was ready to go. … I felt good moving around. I felt good laterally and jumping. My timing might have been a little bit off. My wind wasn’t fully there, but I felt good moving for sure.”
• Ime Udoka’s stint as the Rockets’ head coach has clearly been a success so far. After going 59-177 in the three years before his arrival, Houston has posted a 145-101 record under Udoka. Still, the fourth-year coach is approaching a common crossroads, according to William Guillory of The Athletic, who suggests that the organization will have to determine during the next year or two whether Udoka is the right man to help the Rockets take the next step in the postseason. It’s too soon to say that 2026/27 is a do-or-die season for Udoka, Guillory writes, but Houston will want to see forward progress on the heels of back-to-back first-round playoff exits.
• Varun Shankar of The Houston Chronicle (subscription required) takes a look at what shooting coach Chip Engelland, who is working with center Alperen Sengun and guard Amen Thompson, has brought to the Rockets. As Shankar notes, Udoka worked with Engelland in San Antonio and has said the veteran assistant “really breaks [shooting] down to a science” and has “a special eye for it.”