The ink was barely dry on Norris' contract when he started to make up for the two-a-days his holdout had cost him. Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich's idea was not to punish, or even to train. Tomjanovich planned to bring Norris along to hear the new terminology, maybe listen in during the timeouts. Then he threw Norris on the court Wednesday night in Albuquerque, N.M., for a few minutes and could not get him out.

Norris played 26 minutes at altitude, looking pretty much as if he never missed a day of work, He followed that with 22 more minutes and 16 points in Thursday's 115-110 loss to the Mavericks, pretty much ruining any arguments about the importance of training camp.

Steve Francis led the Rockets with 34 points and 10 rebounds.