With knee pain gone, Foye is ready for tests

By Kent Youngblood, Star Tribune

Last update: November 6, 2007 - 10:27 PM

It's been a week since Timberwolves guard Randy Foye found the pain he'd battled throughout training camp was because of a stress reaction in his left knee cap.

Foye now says he feels pain-free.

"Next week I'm going to start doing some running," he said. "We'll do a little jogging and see how it takes the pounding."

So far, Foye has just let the knee rest. He has done some upper-body work and conditioning on the bike. The plan is to gradually increase the amount of work on the knee. In two weeks, he will have the knee retested to see if the stress reaction has gone away.

A week ago, Foye didn't think that would be enough time. "I was like, 'Three weeks? I don't know,'" Foye said. "But now the pain is gone, just from me resting it and taking the right vitamins."

Doctors didn't think Foye was getting enough calcium in his diet, so he's been taking a supplement.

Silly fouls

In their first two games, the Wolves tried 29 free throws and their opponents took 77.

It was more of the same in Tuesday night's 111-103 loss to Orlando, when the Magic attempted 44 free throws to the Wolves' 25.

Why? Must be young players not getting the calls from the refs, right?

No. It's more a matter of bad timing than it is bad officiating.

"Take the last game," said forward Ryan Gomes, referring to Sunday's 97-93 loss in New York in which the Knicks took 29 more foul shots than the Wolves (39-10). "We just didn't do a good job of recognizing when they were in the bonus. We'd try to make an aggressive play to try to get steals, and those fouls at halfcourt would give 'em two free throws. They got into the bonus real quick."

Coach Randy Wittman calls them silly fouls. Gomes agrees. "We just haven't been thinking as much as we needed to, in terms of what the situation was," Gomes said.

Rotation situation

A few weeks ago, Wittman had 18 players and wasn't sure how the final roster would appear. He essentially went with a seven-man rotation against the Knicks.

The right number is probably somewhere in the middle. But then, Wittman is still figuring out how to utilize his young roster, especially when it comes to his reserves. In each of the Wolves' first two games, the starters built first-quarter leads only to see them evaporate early in the second.

"I'm still looking at different combinations," Wittman said.

Part of it is figuring out how veteran Antoine Walker fits into the mix. "The New York game was a tough game, with Zach [Randolph] and [Eddy] Curry as their bigs," Wittman said.

The problem came when Walker, not yet comfortable at power forward, was forced to guard those big men inside.

Wittman said he might adjust his rotation so some of the starters stay on the court with reserves in order to maintain a flow.

Etc.

• Gerald Green's sore toe landed him on the inactive list Tuesday, along with Foye and Mark Madsen.

Kent Youngblood • kyoungblood@startribune.com

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