JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- It happens every time Grant Hill gets knocked to the floor or Tracy McGrady winces. Suddenly there is silence in every corner of the gym. The hold-your-breath kind.

It happened the other day during one of the first practices of the season, and it proved even more pin-drop quiet than normal. That's because Hill and McGrady, the battered halves of Orlando's $200 million twosome, knocked each other down.

It brought Doc Rivers' heartbeat to a stop for a second, along with his breathing.

	Doc Rivers finally has a core group in Mike Miller, left, Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill.

"I just thought, 'That's it -- the two-for-one deal,' " Rivers said. "They're both out."

Rivers laughed when he told the story because both guys got up. He also laughed because, much as he calls himself an eternal optimist, Rivers can't deny that at least a part of him has come to expect catastrophe for the Orlando Magic. Especially when he's watching Hill.

Rivers is trying, though.

"If the coach starts feeling like 'Woe is me,' then the woe is you," Rivers said.

Mercifully for the coach, four days into training camp at the University of North Florida, there is no tangible reason for woe. McGrady's back and Hill's left ankle are cooperating nicely. Especially Hill's left ankle.

Perhaps that's why Rivers is feeling comfortable enough to openly share scary stories. For all the franchise's fears of more injury travails, fears legitimized by the fact that Hill has played only 18 games over the past two seasons, Rivers firmly believes that No. 33's "first step is back."

"The reason is, I think he thinks he's healthy," Rivers said. "He has a swagger about himself he didn't have last year.

"I really think Grant wants to punish the league."

There's a reason behind the reason, Hill explained, stopping after practice Thursday to tell his own little story. It happened in a doctor's office in April, four months after his third ankle surgery.

"When I came back last year, the bone hadn't healed completely," Hill said. "It was in the healing process, but then I came back and it digressed. It stopped healing. It went backwards. The 50 percent that it healed went to 40 percent.

"Four months after this last surgery, for the first time ever, I was told that it was completely healed. After another X-ray (in June), I was told it looked even better."

That led to a measured offseason in which Hill generally limited his workouts to an hour until September. Then last month, he started playing pick-up ball with regularity, gradually building up confidence in his limbs, increasingly finding the gumption to drive to the basket.

Now?

"If I had to compare now to where I was last year, I'm definitely further along," Hill said. "Everyone keeps telling me I look quicker out there on the court."

It's a much more pleasant conversation than the usual for Hill, which inevitably starts with questions about his health.

"He's got to just be exhausted by being asked how he feels," Magic vice president John Gabriel said. "And, as Grant would tell you, even if he says he feels all right, no one believes him anyway.

"I try not to (ask) now. I really do, because I know there's nothing he can do at this point. There never really was. It was either going to heal or it wasn't. He's got enough people asking him, so I just cheer for him."

Hill, though, doesn't show the exasperation. He jokes that "I know you guys only keep asking me because you care." He likewise senses everyone's skepticism and thus throws in his own disclaimer about his progress: "But it's still just training camp."

He also doesn't seem discouraged by the rust on his game. Patience is manufactured relatively quickly by remembering that he tried "to get it all back in one summer last year" and wound up hurting the ankle in the process, much like Michael Jordan did to prepare for his comeback last October.

The hardest part, Hill insists, is not the questions or the time-consuming quest to shed the rust and relocate his sharpness -- or the mental toll of wearing a string of suits while McGrady was blossoming into an MVP candidate and single-handedly dragging the Magic into the playoffs.

The worst for Hill was actually playing the first 14 games of last season and posting a more than passable 16.9 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. "Playing when I wasn't right," Hill said.

Added Hill: "That was tougher, believe it or not. Sometimes you think, 'Man, I'm going to be like this forever.' But when I had to have surgery again, it was almost a relief. I just kept everything positive this time."

That's Rivers' preference as well, particularly during these early days of camp when the collisions are figurative and literal. Since the Magic signed Hill and McGrady in the summer of 2000, and after Mike Miller blossomed as a 2000-01 rookie, Rivers and Gabriel have dreamed of a super-sized lineup in which all three of their "smaller" guys are 6-foot-8 and hard to guard.

	“	(McGrady and Hill are) waiting for the other one to take over and sometimes neither one of them does anything. But I like the way they're really trying to get things to work well together. There's no 'I'm The Man' stuff going on here, and that's really nice. ”
		— Doc Rivers

It's a nice theory, but that's all it is after two-plus seasons, after so few opportunities to put it into practice.

It's a theory that has to materialize if the Magic hope to emerge as something more than a gutty little playoff team that's happy with a first-round appearance. Orlando still faces all the same size, defense and rebounding issues it has faced since Shaquille O'Neal defected to the Lakers in the summer of 1996. Hill-McGrady-Miller as a unit is Orlando's only chance to be different.

"Grant and Tracy, right now they're kind of in each other's way a little bit, which is expected," Rivers said, expounding on the figurative. "One of them will do it for five minutes and the other will do it for five minutes. We want to get to the point that they both are functioning but out of each other's way.

"Right now they're too nice to each other. They're waiting for the other one to take over and sometimes neither one of them does anything. But I like the way they're really trying to get things to work well together. There's no 'I'm The Man' stuff going on here, and that's really nice.

"They both understand that neither one has had any playoff success, neither one has really had any team success. Both have had a lot of individual accolades, but the only way they're going to be considered great players is to be successful together. Their team is going to have to do something."

Hill believes people are expecting the Magic to do very little. "I think everyone thinks we'll probably go through the same thing again this year with my injuries," he said. "Tracy and I haven't played a whole lot together, but if we're healthy, I think we know how to play. We've both played with great players before -- Tracy with Vince Carter, me with (Jerry) Stackhouse and Joe Dumars. That's going to be the least of our problems."

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. E-mail him at marc.stein@espn3.com.