Divac Says Fakers Gave Game Away

KG's Rookie Season
11/9/1995

Contrasting scenes were being played out in Target Center on Tuesday night, after the Timberwolves had opened their home season with a 93-92 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Vlade Divac and his disgusted teammates were leaving at the south end of the arena. "I can say we gave this game away," Divac said later. "It was a present. We gave them this game as a gift." Those were Divac's thoughts as he headed off the court. Then, a man - said to be wearing a T-shirt that was printed in honor of Croatia - came down near the rail and started taunting him in a Slavic language.

Divac, already fuming about the loss and the bush-league refereeing of the CBA strikebreakers, erupted in anger. "He had to be dragged up the walkway and to the locker room," an arena employee said. "I don't know what was said, but Divac wanted to get the guy." Divac is a Serbian. His hometown is Prijepolje, Yugoslavia. This is his seventh NBA season. He is troubled by the events in his homeland and has initiated the Divac Fund, to help all children affected by the war in the Balkans - Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. No matter. He still hears slurs about his Serbian roots in NBA arenas. How often? "All the time," Divac said.

In Minnesota?

"It was the first time it has happened here," Divac said. "I hate it. Yell at me about basketball. Not this. "He was talking about Croatia. It's stupid. I try to distance myself from these [political] things. Seven years here, and I still hear it all the time. I really hate it." While Divac was being taunted, there was a much happier encounter taking place at midcourt. Chad Hartman and Trent Tucker had completed the telecast on Midwest Sports Channel and Kevin Garnett, the Chicago wunderkind, had been corraled for a quick postgame interview.

A woman kept peeking over Garnett's right shoulder and Hartman asked Kevin if he knew the lady. Garnett turned and said: "That's my mom." Then, he did a double take and said, "Mom, how did you get here?" When Shirley Garnett Irbe gave her 19-year-old son a smack on the cheek, he said: "That's kind of mushy. Don't kiss me on camera, mom." After that embarrassment, Garnett said: "I didn't know my mom was going to be here. I saw a woman in the stands a couple of times tonight and said, `Hmmm, that lady sure looks like my mom.' "

Irbe said not informing her son that she was going to be present for the home opener is part of a longstanding tradition. "It's a ritual, between my son and I, that we don't speak on the day of a game," she said. "Even in high school, he would come home, take a shower, I would make him a snack before the game, but we wouldn't talk. "He wants to be able to concentrate on the game and nothing else. That's why I didn't tell him I was flying up here this morning. Just let him concentrate on the game. We've always done it that way."

The team's seventh home schedule opened with 14,756 tickets sold and with 11,800 spectators actually in the building. The 4,250 unsold tickets for a season opener should put an end to any speculation that the Woofies' owner, Glen Taylor, has some extra arena revenue to toss in the direction of Richard Burke and an NHL franchise. Then again, if the 3 1/2 minutes of thunder that the small audience witnessed at the end of third quarter becomes commonplace, there might be bodies - rather than a sea of empty red seats - in the second deck.

Garnett played 8 entertaining minutes in the first half. He earned the two largest roars of an otherwise quiet first half - first, by hitting a three-pointer, then by skying to swat away a floating shot by Divac. The overmatched, CBA clowns with the whistles called goaltending, but it mattered not. Garnett smacked the basketball to the floor with his emphatic rejection, and the fans cheered mightily. Coach Bill Blair gave the crowd another look at the 6-foot-11 Garnett midway through the third quarter. The kid wouldn't leave. He played the next 18 minutes, departing only for the defense of veteran Sam Mitchell in the final 11 seconds.

And there was that stretch at the end of the third quarter, after J.R. Rider replaced the slow-starting Doug West. It started with a drive and a wrap-around pass from Rider, to Garnett for a throw-down dunk. Take heart, Woofies' fans. This was definitely not Scott Roth feeding Tod Murphy. There were a several more sensational passes, rebounds and buckets from Garnett and Rider in the quarter. So, don't you think it is time to stop sitting on your wallets, fans? It's only taken 495 regular-season games and already our Woofies have provided 3 1/2 minutes of spectacular hoops.