Casey puts out call for defense http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/sports/basketball/15672408.htm Coach makes Wolves aware that making stops must come first. The Timberwolves opened training camp Tuesday with a singular purpose: establishing defense as this team's identity. The team that was one of the NBA's best in field-goal percentage defense for the first half of last season lost its way after a blockbuster trade with the Boston Celtics in January. Coach Dwane Casey emphasized defense throughout the season, but by the end of the year, it wasn't sinking in with players the way it had at the onset. There were new players and an increased desire to push the ball on offense. Somewhere along the way, the mix fizzled en route to a 14-28 record after the trade, 33-49 overall. So Casey and the Wolves will spend the week practicing at Minnesota State University Mankato with a renewed commitment to stopping opponents from scoring. "I think he's setting the tone because we didn't have no identity defensively last year," said veteran guard Trenton Hassell, the team's best perimeter defender. "We had spurts. A lot of games we lost down the stretch were due to defense because we couldn't get any stops. We weren't scoring. But when you're not scoring, you've got to be able to fall back on defense. We didn't do that." The roster is loaded with guards, so it will take some maneuvering to play defense with what could be a small-ball lineup for much of each game. Among Casey's biggest teaching points in practice: stopping dribble penetration into the middle of the lane and rotating properly on pick and rolls. For players in the NBA, effective defense seems to be as much about desire as the schemes involved. When coach Avery Johnson got the offense-first Dallas Mavericks to buy into defense in his first full season, the team advanced to the NBA Finals last summer. Entering his second season, Casey hopes he can pull off a similar makeover with the Wolves. "Everybody's talking about offense, run and gun," Casey said. "We're emphasizing defense this week." The foundation will be set in place during training camp, but it will be reinforced throughout the season, Casey said. The Wolves allowed an average of 93.6 points a game in 2005-06, eighth in the league, and limited opponents to 44.1 percent shooting (ninth). But defensive breakdowns led to the Wolves losing an NBA-high 15 games last season when leading after three quarters. Wolves' opponents averaged 90.9 points in 40 games before the trade that sent Wally Szczerbiak to Boston as the centerpiece of a seven-player deal. In the 42 games after the trade, opponents' scoring increased to 96.2 points a game. "We had to get adjusted to one another," Hassell said. "We didn't know each other on defense. We didn't trust each other as teammates on defense. When this man beat us, we didn't really trust the other man being there (to help). And that only comes with playing with each other, and I don't think we had enough time to do that." The run-and-gun offense Casey mentioned is what some outsiders have come to expect from the team this season. Even the players and coaches have acknowledged they want to push the ball and score more than last season's team, which ranked 28th in the NBA with an average of 91.7 points a game. Mike James and Randy Foye are guards who should help the Wolves' offense. They can break defenders down off the dribble and create plays. James ranked fourth in the NBA last season in three-point shooting accuracy and averaged 20.3 points a game. Add James and Foye to a group of scorers that includes Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis, and the team could have some punch. That's why the team will worry about fine-tuning its offense later. Davis, the key player acquired in the trade, must play better defense for the team to have more success. He was scorched often last season, sometimes by inferior athletes. Casey said he talked with Davis all summer about improving the swingman's defense. "He can score, but he's got to be able to guard," Casey said. "If Trenton gets in foul trouble, he may guard or Marko (Jaric) may guard the top offensive threat of the other team." Davis said a groin injury down the stretch last season and the timing of the trade hurt his defense, but he added that he has accepted Casey's challenge. "It's good that we started with a defensive approach," Davis said. "From Day One, no one has any excuses." --

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