http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/13783511.html Wolves call for more consistency from McCants The team needs the young guard to grow into a consistent force on both offense and defense. Before he left for Boston, Kevin Garnett tried to teach him just how to deliver that. The Wolves are looking for young guard Rashad McCants to grow into a consistent force on both offense and defense. Al Jefferson, with very few exceptions, has carried the Timberwolves upon his broad shoulders all season. So why does it sometimes seem that as third-year guard Rashad McCants goes, so goes his team? Jefferson is the Wolves' only given, one of five players in the NBA who is averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game. After that, a team that is second to last in the league in scoring never knows from where its points will come, an inconsistency that summarizes both its 5-31 season and McCants' mercurial career. When the Wolves won for the first time this season, McCants scored a career-high 33 points against Sacramento in November, three weeks after the team traded veteran Ricky Davis to make room in the starting lineup for him. After that game, McCants said he planned to make the most of the opportunity given to him. Two months later, he has eclipsed that career high by a point in a loss to Denver early this month. Two games later, he delivered 27 points and a career-high eight rebounds in a victory over Miami that ended the Wolves' eight-game losing streak. McCants also for a time fell out of the starting lineup and into a reduced role because of illness and a tendency to become what Wolves coach Randy Wittman called "three-point happy" and distracted defensively. "Consistency, that's what we're talking about here," Wittman said. "That's the difference between being an average player, a decent player, a good player or a great player. The great ones do it every night. There were many nights when KG [Kevin Garnett] might have been 5-for-13, but he still rebounded and he blocked shots and he got to the free-throw line. "Those are the kind of players you're looking for, where you know what they're going to give you and you're not wondering what's it going to be tonight, what's it going to be tomorrow night." Garnett told his younger teammate as much before he left for Boston. His influence on McCants is obvious every night that he starts a game by clapping rosin all over the scorer's table, just the way Garnett did when he was here. "The biggest thing KG told me is you can still affect the game even if your shot is not falling," said McCants, the former North Carolina star who underwent microfracture surgery on his knee after his rookie season. "There was a time I was not doing that. Not even close." That idleness and a propensity to find foul trouble pushed him out of the starting lineup for a month before he reemerged in time to help push the Wolves to victory last week over Miami. He disagrees with Wittman's contention that he becomes smitten with the three-pointer. "Not at all," he said. "I felt in our offense, I was taking what I was given" -- and yet acknowledges he has become much more active since breaking out against the Nuggets 11 days ago. McCants explains the difference simply by saying he "just stopped thinking about things," and suggested he has returned to playing on his instincts rather than "overthink what the coach wants or what plays are run." "He's doing what he does best: attack the basket," Jefferson said. "Even the best shots have bad nights. When he's aggressive, it opens up the floor for him; it opens up the floor for us." Wittman wants McCants, averaging 15 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.2 assists, to concentrate more on his defense to prevent what he calls too many "lackadaisical" touch fouls when defending the best opponents at the small forward and big guard positions. Wittman calls that part of his game "the next step." "I don't need to be a lock-down defender," McCants said. "I just need to be solid." He also needs to score on a team lacking reliable options beyond Jefferson, at least until Randy Foye returns healthy. --

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