- While Chris Bosh returned to practice today, Hedo Turkoglu (ankle) and Jose Calderon (elbow laceration) did not participate, working on conditioning instead. Andrea Bargnani missed practice because of an illness.

- The session was a long one today, starting at 10:30 with media not being allowed in until 1:30.

- Reggie Evans was asked about being voted the “dirtiest” player in the NBA by a poll in the next edition of SI and he said he considers it a compliment.

- When Turkoglu came out to do his interview (he did it in the hallway because he was leaving to get some treatment and the practice was still going on), he came out with a huge, exaggerated fake limp, before giving it up and smiling. He then told us some good news: While he does have pain, he doesn’t have much swelling and sounds like he wants to go on Friday.

- Jose had a little bit of good news, too: His elbow “laceration” does not have any infection. There was a concern this may happen, so stitches were not used to close the wound. Luckily, there is no infection and he is hopeful that he will be back practising soon.

- Regarding the “haunted” hotel in OKC: If you are to ask Marcus Banks about the hotel, he’ll tell you he heard a baby crying through the vents all night long. Creepy.

- On the Olympics: Chris told us he didn’t watch any because he doesn’t watch TV.

Calderon

- How is your elbow feeling?: “It’s still there. Everything is OK. Hopefully I’ll practise tomorrow. Just be proactive just in case.”

-What were you able to do today?: “I was working in the gym, running, conditioning. I still cannot shoot the ball, so I’m waiting for tomorrow.”

- What happened on the road trip?: “We didn’t play our best basketball for sure. Offence, defence, it was bad. We’ve got to be back on track on Friday, hopefully with everybody back. We’re still fifth position after a bad four games. The good thing about it is we’re still up there. We just have to keep working. Sometimes there are ups and downs. We’re down now. We don’t have to make a big deal of it.”

- How tough was it without Chris in the lineup?: “There are no excuses. It’s not because of C.B. It’s just because we played bad. He’s one of the best players in the NBA. Everybody could use a guy like him. Like I said, we didn’t lose because he wasn’t on the team. We lost because we didn’t do the things we are supposed to.”

Turkoglu

- How are you feeling?:“I’m a little sore but today we go and take some pictures, x-rays, to make sure it’s nothing really serious. Rest and treatment for a couple days and hopefully I can go on Friday.”

- How much will the return of Chris help the team?: “It will help a lot. I always say he’s been carrying the load for the whole year. We miss him a lot in those games. We tried to step up when we got a chance to take his role. He’s been a major part of this success. I know he’s excited to be back. We all are.”

- Does it make things easier offensively for you?: “It’s another great player on the court, and it’s going to make your job easy. I know for me and for other guys, too. He’s been really great for our team the whole year. He’s been dominant. When you have those kind of guys next to you when you play, it’s going to help you to get better shots, better looks, because they’re not going to leave you when you drive.”

- Is there a sense of urgency?: “Everybody realizes what we did wrong to let it kind of slip away, a few games. Right now I think, even today, I didn’t practice but I saw the guys, with Chris back, it was a really different atmosphere. I think people realize what we need to do to be successful. Before the four games, what we did: play together, playing hard, play at both ends of the court and just playing as a team, as a group is really going to help you to succeed as a group.”

- You’ve been in and out, will it be tough to get your rhythm back?: “It’s part of the life, part of the game. I’m trying to get out of it, too. Hopefully it will be quick and I go back to my rhythm again and try to play a good basketball game. I won’t let it bother me. I’ll just try to put it behind me and just work on my game like I did before, with Eric [Hughes] after practice, and try to get back in the game.”

Bosh

- What was it like watching the team on TV from home?: “It was an experience. It was tough watching it. I know the guys weren’t happy with the outcome, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. Work hard and make sure it doesn’t happen again Learn from our mistakes. Sometimes you go through tough stretches and it’s all about how you react.”

- Think the team was over-matched without you?: “Not at all. We just weren’t within our structure. We didn’t play good defence. Quite frankly, there were layup drills by the other team. I think if you pay attention to every other good team in the NBA, if they have a player out, their main player out, they’re still going to play good defence and give themselves a chance to win the game and I don’t think we did that.”

- What about the defence?: “Concentrate, focus. Learn from our mistakes. Watch film. We know, we know what’s the problem. We know where we’re supposed to be. We just have to reiterate it, make sure we do the right thing instead of having the same relapses.”

- Fastbreak points?: “We’ve never been known to turn the ball over like that. If we play within our offence and make correct passes, make sure everybody gets involved in the offence and takes good shots and then we get back, we limit fastbreak points. Fastbreak points can really kill you because they give team confidence. Especially on the road, if you’re playing on the road you don’t want to give teams layups. If they’re starting to play fast, if they’re getting layups, getting dunks, getting the crowd into it, their confidence grows. Now threes are going in, everybody shots jumpers, get layups and it makes it almost impossible to win. In order for us to win games, we’re going to have to play solid defence, make sure we get back and take care of the ball on offence.”

- You were able to get some rest?: “Yeah. To take a positive out of the negative, my ankle is feeling really good, I’m ready to play. I’ve been working on conditioning every day, trying to get that back.”

- A sense of urgency to close the season?: “We have 23 games left, you lose two games, three games in a row you’re on the outside looking in. It’s a tough situation, but we knew it was going to happen. It’s going to be a photo finish at the end. Every game is important now. This is the part of the season I’ve been waiting on, it’s exciting.”

- You missed playoffs last year, what does it feel like to be here in this position of fighting for them now?: “This is the fun part. I wanted to make the playoffs but the playoffs are coming a little early. In order to make it, we’re going to have to play the right kind of basketball. Charlotte’s out now, Miami was out yesterday, we could be next. We’ve got to have that urgency.”

- More on finishing strong: “I’m grateful to be in this situation. I think last year taught me a lot and I’ve been waiting two years to get back here. I’ll make sure I play like it. You’re going to be able to tell every time I step on the court how long I’ve been waiting on this.”

Triano

- How was Chris today?: “He was 100 percent in every drill. I think injury wise, he’s probably pretty close, wind wise he probably needs a little more work, but hopefully he can get some more in tomorrow and be ready for Friday.”

- Getting people healthy?: “There’s nothing we can do about it. Guys need to try and get healthy. It gives other guys an opportunity to step up and play and they have to play better than they have been.”

- What did practice consist of today?: A little bit of everything. We did a lot of film session. We did some transition stuff, we did some defensive stuff, offensive stuff, individual shooting and weights.”

- With the standings tightening, is there a greater sense of urgency?: “Honestly, I’ve said this before, I try not to look at the other teams because I can’t control them. I can control our team. Do we need to start playing better? Absolutely. Does there need to be more of an urgency? Absolutely. What’s going to happen around is, is irrelevant to us because we can’t control it. We can control what we do and we have to get better. 25-something games left, yeah there’s an urgency. We have to get things rolling. We have to get better defensively and we have not been. There hasn’t been the urgency to get back on defense, we’ve had 21, 20 and 30 fastbreak points against us. A lot of that has to do with being selfish at the offensive end. Those were things we’ve got to get better at.”

- Playing without a player like Chris: “What it means is our margin for error becomes that much smaller. We seem to hang our heads a little bit when we don’t do well. As bad as we were at the start of the Houston game, when Turk got hurt it was a four-point game.”

- The biggest mistake on the road trip: “I think our biggest mistake was that our guys, and not to fault them, but they tried to do it themselves instead of playing team basketball. They tried to pick up the slack themselves. And I appreciate the fact that they want to make us better, but there has to be a concentrated and an educated way to do it. Our guys took it upon themselves to go one-on-one. We had 22 possessions where there was either no passes or one pass. When you play like that, you’re either going to turn it over or take bad shots. And those are two things that lead to fast-break points going the other way.”

- Defence and transition:  “We look at field goal percentage against and the last four games teams have been shooting 51 percent against us. You’re not going to win any games that way. That goes back to the way we were at the beginning of the year and again, it goes back to transition. Teams are shooting about 95 percent on open layups in the open court. If you limit all of those –and we have– we’ve broken down with our players, when we break it down in the halfcourt, we’re pretty darn good defensively. Second chance points, there’s really no defence for that and transition points are things that are going to kill you and that’s just a matter of getting our butts back.”