BEYOND THE BOX SCORE -- November 17th

Minnesota 109 Washington 98 – Another great win for Case …. Games was basically tied to start the 4th and Minnesota clutched up. That has been tough for Minny because teams have been denying the ball to KG and they haven’t had anyone else step up. The sad thing is that KG is one of the best distrubtors in the game so it should be easy to play off of him. Tonight they did Richie Frahm had 16 and Wally World had 17…. KG is one of a kind 25-13-9 … Wolves outrebounded the Wiz 45 to 31 …. I always thought Frahm was the perfect back-up to Ray Allen. He can shoot the lights out, he is strong and physical and willing to defend. Send him in for 10 minutes to beat the guy up and hit a shot or two. It always seemed perfect … Minnesota shot 54%. This jumps out because early this year Washington was playing the best defense in the league and the last few games they have stopped defending … I have always believed that Minnesota is best when they go small and play KG at the center. They won this game with a line-up of Hudson, Frahm, Wally, Griffin and KG. If Casey does that Minnesota will be tough.

Dallas 87 Atlanta 78 – Who wins a game first Atlanta or Toronto? ….. Marvin Williams made his first start …. It is almost impossible to evaluate any Hawk player because the team is so poor that someone has to score and rebound and you can’t tell if it is because they are good or if is out of existence …. Dallas only scored 11 points in the first quarter… Erick Dampier is such a bust. Tonight he played 20 minutes, was 0 for 2 fouled out and had 6 turnovers. … very strange substitution pattern by Mike Woodson the Hawks starting line-up went on a 10 to 2 run to open the game and a 9-1 run in the second half and he never played them together other then those times.

San Antonio 86 Houston 80 – Houston slips to 3-5 … Houston never led …. Yao Ming scored just one point in the second half …. The Spurs signed Alex Scales who was in the Sonics camp. He was active but did not play …. The three starters for the Rockets other then Yao and McGrady were a combined 3 for 16. That is not much help …. Van Gundy has been yo-yoing rookie Luther Head from not playing to 20+ minutes….. Juwan Howard and Derek Anderson were –14 in 20 minutes …. Interesting Yao Ming was +8 in 42 minutes. That means in the 6 minutes he was off the floor they got outscored by 14 points.