Wallace turns off Garnett, Timberwolves' momentum
s_knight8
On Friday night, as Minnesota's Kevin Garnett backed down Zach
Randolph and made a short turnaround jumper for two of his 12
first-quarter points, one of the sideline assistants hollered at
Cheeks:
"Where's Rasheed? Let's go!"
Rasheed Wallace, who in the past has been every bit Garnett's equal,
was on the bench.
But by the end of the first quarter, Cheeks had seen enough and, for
whatever reason, put Wallace back into the game. Wallace not only did
an outstanding defensive job on Garnett, but he also helped the
Blazers grab the momentum that carried them to a 101-92 victory at the
Rose Garden.
"Rasheed is used to guarding Garnett," Cheeks said. "I think both of
those guys were really into the game at the time they started guarding
one another.
"Most times when Rasheed is guarding him, we don't have to double him.
That's the difference when you put Rasheed on him as opposed to" Zach
Randolph.
"The second quarter, we just let down," Saunders said. "We tried to
take some guys out and the Blazers built a big lead. It seemed outside
of our main guys, we didn't have a lot of energy.
"Portland is long, so when we take Kevin out of there . . . it was a
little bit their size, but that's kind of where we're at right now."
"It's not easy for guys off the bench, but when you go in there,
you've got to make something happen, especially when you're down 18,"
Saunders said. "You can't say, 'Well, I'm going to play myself into a
rhythm.' You've got to go out and create something."
"Kevin takes what they give him," Saunders said. "Maybe he didn't
score, but he's always passing the ball and doing the other things.
He's not a guy who looks at matchups and says, 'I've got to go
dominate.' He just plays. It wasn't him. We just weren't playing in a
very good rhythm at that time."
"Our big men did a great job against Garnett," Blazers guard Jeff
McInnis. "He's the man for their team. Any time you can limit his
touches and make it hard for him to score, we knew we'd give ourselves
a chance.
"We knew they'd make a run in the second half, but our main thing was
to not let Garnett get crazy."