Checking In With Coach Ociepka-Seattle

Your rookies played well tonight. Can you speak on Randy Foye and Craig Smith?

Craig was fantastic. He did a terrific job on the boards. They did some double-teaming to Kevin Garnett, which effected his play a little bit, but Craig really slid into the open slot and drove to the basket. As I said, he got on the glass for us and was a force and, as a result, Randy Wittman had him finish the game tonight.

Randy also logged big minutes. There’s a lot of responsibilities for a point guard, but he’s growing each time out. We watched some tape of a previous game defensively and he was better defensively tonight. He keeps growing as an offensive player too. We’re happy with the progress of both rookies.

Kevin Garnett had a rare rough game, although he was one assist off a triple-double. Do you expect him to come out strong tonight to, in a sense, make up for his rough night?

Kevin, you expect great things from him every night because of the player he is, but he usually doesn’t have two bad games in a row. A bad game for him is a good game for a lot of players. I’m sure he will be ready to go tomorrow night in LA and we expect better things tomorrow.

Trenton Hassell also flirted with a triple-double tonight. Can you speak on his value to this team?

He’s our defender. When we make our game plans, when we look at playing a Ray Allen or a Kobe Bryant, guys of that caliber, Trenton’s the one who has the task of being assigned to those guys. It takes a lot of pressure off the coach, knowing you’ve got Trenton to guard those guys with minimal help. Although players of that caliber are going to put up numbers because of the volume of shots they take and because of their talent, one guy can’t do it alone, but Trenton does a heck of a job. He’s a guy who can also post up which he’s done some of that for us lately. He’s taking guys down in the post, forcing double-teams and finding open players playing off of him. He’s very valuable to us, not just from a defensive standpoint, but offensively as well. I know the other players appreciate his effort and work out on the court.

Is the team antsy to get back to Minnesota after a long road trip?

Yeah, we are antsy to get home, readjust to the time zones and so on. It seems like we’ve been out here awhile, but that’s the way the league is. We’ve got a game tomorrow night, then we come back and have to readjust to play Phoenix on Monday. So, yeah, we’re anxious to get back.