Cassell Yields to Back Spasms

Anyone out there got a healthy back you can loan Sam Cassell?

His has spasms running every which way and keeps seizing up on him at bad times, such as the fourth quarter of Friday night’s opener of the Western Conference finals, when all he could do was watch the Lakers take back the home-court advantage the Timberwolves had worked six months for.

Cassell staggered through the Sacramento series like a mummy with a jump shot but was always there at the end, as in Game 7, when he was supposed to be a decoy and scored 21 points.

Friday, he had 16 in the first three quarters, getting the harness he wore under his jersey wired to a machine that sent electric impulses into his back while he was on the bench, as a trainer put an ice bag down the front of his shorts.

Imagine what he might have done to the Lakers at full strength. But, iced in front, heated in back, he still couldn’t return for the fourth, which is not a good omen for the home team.

“This is the first time Sam wasn’t in there in crunch time,” said teammate Fred Hoiberg. “Nobody can do the things Sam does down the stretch like that. We’re just going to have to find a way to pick things up.”

Good luck. Maybe they can smuggle Tracy McGrady in and let him wear Trenton Hassell’s uniform.

Kevin Garnett may be the league’s MVP but Cassell is the Timberwolves’ No. 1 option. If you don’t believe it, you could ask Garnett.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Garnett said. “It’s no secret. It’s frustrating not having your general out there. The reality is, you can’t sit there and cry.”

Or you could ask Cassell.

“You know, it ain’t what I would like it to be,” Cassell said of his back, “but we don’t need to cry over it. Crying ain’t going to make it better, so I just got to continue to do what I can do out there when I’m on the basketball court.

“Sometimes it allows me to do things and it don’t allow me to do things. For a quarter, it didn’t allow me to get off the bench. That’s all I could give my ballclub tonight and I think they understand my situation.

“So be it.”

Cassell was running around stiffly but effectively, until the third quarter when he reached back to deflect a Kobe Bryant pass and his back seized up anew.

“That did it,” Cassell said. “I came down awkwardly. That was the play that really put me back at square one.”

Late in the fourth quarter, a Timberwolf assistant came down to Cassell and asked him if he could return. To his sorrow, Cassell said no.

“Words can’t really describe how I felt,” he said. “I’m a competitor and not being able to go back into the game.... My team needs me. I’m the general. It starts with me.

“It’s tough for me sometimes not to be able to do the things that I know I can do on the basketball court,” he said, adding that the Lakers picked him up, pressured him and told him to drive, but he couldn’t. “That’s the tough thing about it, but it’s a smart game plan by them.

“No way in the world if I’m healthy that they would push up on me like that. But that’s just how it is. The game is tough. That’s the hand I was dealt, that’s the hand I got to play so, you know, so be it.”

The Timberwolves said that a lot Friday night. You can’t cry about it. We can only do what we can do.

Coach Flip Saunders, asked about trying to contain Shaquille O’Neal, said, “You do what you can do. I’ve always said Shaq is the most dominating player in the game.”

And Saunders on Cassell: “Sam did what he could do.”

Of course, the good news for the Timberwolves is, they’ve been in here before, or as Saunders noted, “We were in the same situation in the series against Sacramento.”

They lost the opener of that one too. Of course, it’s not exactly the same situation, because they were playing the Kings then and they’re playing the Lakers now.

What, them worry?

“No,” said Cassell. “We understand what they can bring but they’re not invincible. We’ve been here before. We’ve just got to maintain the things we need to do....

“It’s tough it’s happening but it’s part of the game. Injuries are part of the game. I’ve been around this game a long time. Injuries win championships and injuries lose championships.

“But I’m not done. I’m not done. I’m going to get my treatment, do what I have to do to get myself back on the basketball court.

“I know I can be very effective against this Laker ball club, no doubt about it.”

There really is no doubt about it. The question is whether it’ll be this season, or next.