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Mike Evans sat down wearily at the end of Thursday night's Toronto Raptors practice with a big smile.

"Mission accomplished," he said.

The veteran assistant coach was referring to the last of the team's two-a-day practices — a training camp necessity that grinds on players, certainly, but takes its toll on coaches, too.

Getting through them in one piece is a worthy feat for coaches and players alike.

"It's a physical job, man. It's tough," said Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell, who at least can delegate when he's tired. "It's more than sitting in a room breaking down film. You have to get out and work with the guys."

Evans has had it a little rougher than most this week. Like most of his 40-ƒ|and 50-something peers, he's a former player with ankles and knees well past their warranty date. He went in for a minor arthroscopic procedure on his left knee just over a month ago and found himself in a bit of bind when it turned out he had two torn ligaments that needed repair.

But even though he's limping, he hasn't missed a practice. He just ices it down and gets on the floor without much fanfare. After all, there's no disabled list for coaches.

"I'm a tough guy," he says. "I'm old school."

The reality, too, is he's old — or at least at 53 he's decades older than the world-class athletes he's trying to push and prod to the next level, and there's no way yet invented that doesn't involve at least some risk to life and limb.

Fellow Raptors assistant Alex English played 14 all-star seasons in the NBA but he's got a baby finger like a warped twig thanks to a ball thrown at game speed during a drill while coaching. The Raptors' new player-development coach, Gord Herbert, has been getting treatment this week for a rotator-cuff injury. Fellow Raptors assistant Jay Triano trains daily for an hour to make sure he's up to the rigours of the job, but no amount of training prepares can prepare you for a train wreck.

"[Rafael] Araujo used to kill me," Triano said of the washed-out, former first-round pick that never threatened the opposition yet who — at 6 foot 10 and a muscular 280 pounds — regularly imperilled the Raptor staffers who worked with him. "It wasn't on purpose. But he would make a move and run right into you and he's a big strong guy."

It's not just big guys who can cause damage. Small and fast — and in the NBA anything under 6 foot 4 and 220 pounds in considered small — can pack a wallop, too.

"One time we were doing shows with the guards and [former Raptors guard] Darrick Martin went full steam right into my chest," Triano said. "I was in a lot of pain for about a week. He bruised my ribs."

But it's working with the 'bigs' that carries the most risk. At least in those instances the coaches come prepared with a hefty pad — more like a shield — that they use to hit and lean on the likes of Chris Bosh and Jermaine O'Neal to mimic the banging and pushing that is part of life in the paint.

"You got to use that pad, man," said Mitchell, who learned the hard way during his days as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks. "Dan Gadzuric nearly killed me one time with his wild self.

"You come out there and think you're Superman and you don't need that pad? Someone like Jermaine O'Neal will hurt you."

The whole point is to push players to their limit — no one improves by going half speed — so the coaches don't mind if their charges get a little overzealous. They even encourage it.

"If they're not being physical with you then they're not getting it done," said Herbert, who had his mouth bloodied and his eye smacked by separate elbows from 6-foot-11, 280-pound Raptors rookie Nathan Jawai while working with him over the summer. "We want them to bang and get after it in that paint area."

For better or worse, the players don't need all that much encouragement.

"Once they get that pad and once they step on that court, if you want to hang and bang with us, be ready, it's no joke," Bosh said. "We're going to try to knock you out of the picture."

For a professional basketball player, that's kind of fun. For an assistant coach, it's part of the job.