http://www.startribune.com/511/story/1024800.html It's not unusual, at a Timberwolves game, to hear a lot of yakking from the elite seats, at least from the folks who use the high-priced tickets at Target Center to be seen rather than to see. It is a little unusual for that sort of chatter to go on on the court, at least to the levels it reached during the Wolves' 98-94 victory Sunday over the Washington Wizards. Ricky Davis yapped at DeShawn Stevenson, who naturally yapped back. Kevin Garnett did a little jawing at Wizards center Brendan Haywood, enough to earn a technical foul. Washington's Agent Zero, Gilbert Arenas, wasn't exactly in stealth mode either, since he got T-ed up in the third quarter. Garnett went at Washington's 21-year-old Andray Blatche, determined to get into young guy's head. Stevenson kept waving his hand in front of his face after each of his baskets -- apparently it means "you can't see me," which means something to him -- and jabbered enough to get his own technical in the third. At that point, the referees let it be known loudly to both teams and both benches that there would be "No more talking!" Right. "We kept going," Davis said, with a big smile after he scored 27 points, eight of them during a 17-5 spurt that immediately followed the referees' zip-it instructions. That turned a 58-58 tie into a 75-63 Wolves lead that they managed -- more or less -- to the finish. Managing it down to five, back to seven, down to three, up to eight and finally down to two, 95-93 with 42.6 seconds left, kept everyone focused and involved. Then the Wolves won it by grabbing two key offensive rebounds: Davis grabbed Garnett's missed layup with 27.7 seconds left, and Garnett saved Mark Blount after the center clanged two free throws at 17.2 seconds. Randy Foye was fouled and made two free throws to make it 97-93 with 13.1 seconds to go, after which Stevenson and Garnett went 1-for-2 from the line before time ran out on the Wizards. It was the gabby nature of the game that separated this one from most of the other 82, with Washington's 112-100 victory coming out of the All-Star break Tuesday sticking in Minnesota players' heads. Now Davis might not be a Sam Cassell -- for whom talking is akin to breathing -- but he's close. As for Garnett, he's straight out of the Gary Payton school of verbally challenging, well, just about anyone. "It's just competitive. But it's like that all the time with Kevin and Ricky," said Stevenson, who scored 17 of his team-high 21 points after halftime. "If they would have left me alone, I would have scored four points." Said Garnett of Stevenson: "Since he's left Utah and Orlando, he's become a little bit of a chatter. I like that, because Rick gets off on that. He woke a sleeping dog, which was good for us." As for himself, Garnett said: "I don't talk too much. I discuss on what I'm doing." The Wolves (26-30) kept Arenas, the league's second-leading scorer (29.2), relatively quiet in deeds. Their defense didn't have to worry about fellow All-Star Caron Butler, a late scratch Sunday with back spasms, or former All-Star Antawn Jamison (sprained left knee), so they threw more bodies at Arenas. He missed 18 of his 22 shots, was scoreless in the third quarter, was 1-for-11 from the arc and got three of his 20 points off Wolves technical fouls. "We tried to make him take tough shots and ... just build a wall, and try to make him dribble into the wall," Foye said of Arenas. Foye dished eight assists with 13 points. Garnett had 26 points and 17 rebounds. As for Davis, he led the Wolves in scoring for the 15th time this season. And in yammering for the 40th or 50th. At one point, Davis mocked Stevenson's hand-wave gesture with one of his own, though they shook hands at the final horn. "I was just following suit," Davis said. "I don't want to get nothing going. I'm going to leave that until we see them in the playoffs." That, of course, would require both teams to reach the Finals, which would have everyone talking. --

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