Approximately 40 members of the Rockets’ team, coaches and staff are scheduled to fly to Minneapolis from Houston after tonight’s game against Toronto to show support for their coach in attending his daughter, Sasha McHale’s, funeral. Alexandra ”Sasha” McHale passed away on Saturday at just 23, and the team is certain they have to be there for Kevin McHale and his family.

According to Ultimate Rockets:

“It’s real important,” Patrick Patterson said. “We have to support coach McHale. He’s a priority. He’s part of this family. His family is part of our family. We have to show him that we care, that we love him, each and every one of them.

“I believe and I hope it helps from the standpoint of support. There’s not too much words can really do, but knowing people are there supporting, knowing you have a family, a team, an organization behind you and understands what you’re going through, that’s what we want to show coach McHale and the McHale family. We love them and we’re here for them.”

“It will be tough, but it is something we feel we have to do and is 100 percent necessary,” Chandler Parsons said. “We need to be there for him. He’s our head coach and we’re close to his family. There is no other way to do it than what we’re doing.”

“We’re not worried about that,” Jeremy Lin said. “When you talk about one game versus life or death, it’s not even close to comparable.

“We support him and we want to make sure he feels that. He’s our head coach. We have to be there for him to do that. He would do the same for us. It speaks a lot to the character of the people in the organization who put it all together. That’s big time.”

“We’re trying to support him and be there for him as much as possible,” Harden said. “It means a lot, knowing our schedule, knowing we have a game the same day. Obviously, it doesn’t take away the pain from what he lost. We’re just trying to be there to offer support as much as we can.”