Thunder: Scott Brooks is hoping Thunder is ready for ride on Crazy Train

For an NBA coach, this season's quandary arrives when his team plays back-to-back-to-back games. All 30 teams will play at least one BTBTB. Ten teams will play two.

The Thunder's lone BTBTB of the season begins Friday at 7 p.m. with a game against the Houston Rockets inside Chesapeake Energy Arena. Then comes a game at Houston on Saturday night, then back home on Sunday night to face the San Antonio Spurs. That's followed by a travel day to Memphis and back-to-back road games against the Grizzlies and New Orleans Hornets.

That's five games in six nights for the Thunder, which opened the season by going 5-0 in a span of seven nights.

OKC jumped head-first into the league's condensed 66-game regular-season schedule. Through Tuesday, the Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers were the only teams to have played seven games in the first 10 days.

As if his next quest weren't difficult enough, Thunder coach Scott Brooks has one more question every coach wonders from time to time. Is it starve a cold and feed a fever, or the other way around?

Starting guard Thabo Sefolosha, who on Tuesday night missed only his fourth start in the last three-plus seasons, continues to suffer from flu-like symptoms, and did not practice Thursday. He remains questionable against the Rockets.

Reserve guard Daequan Cook appears to have conquered his bout with the flu, but is now wearing goggles to alleviate light and help combat dizziness and nausea.

The NBA's 149-day lockout gave coaches extra time to think through their preparations this season, but there can be danger in over-thinking it.

“It's a combination,” Brooks said. “You don't want to over-think it, but you also want to think it through.”

In hopes of conserving his team's energy, Brooks has shortened practice times and game day shoot-around sessions. However, doing so has also limited preparation time.

“We still want to get things accomplished,” Brooks said. “We still have to put things in, and we have.”

OKC reserve center Nazr Mohammed was a rookie with the Philadelphia 76ers the last time the NBA had a lockout during the 50-game season in 1999.

Mohammed left the University of Kentucky after his junior season and played just 121 minutes in 26 games as a rookie. He played 16 combined minutes in the Sixers' BTBTB stretch from Feb. 18-20, 1999.