His fingers tingled. His palms itched. Timberwolves forward Kevin Garnett said he actually had to smack his hands the first time his team played its new "32'' zone defense three weeks ago to keep himself from reaching out to try to steal the ball from Suns guard and former teammate Stephon Marbury.

"Gambling,'' as Garnett puts it, is one of the biggest temptations of the "32.'' Patience, however, yields the biggest frustrations ? for opponents.

"It's been throwing a lot of teams off,'' said Garnett, who has the most responsibility in the new scheme. "It's about like when we started running '50.' People didn't know what we were running and how to prepare for it. And I think Flip sort of wanted to mix it up coming into the second half.''

With opponents adjusting to Minnesota's "50'' matchup zone, and the team's defense needing a new wrinkle for the stretch run, Saunders pulled a new strategy out of his bag of tricks after the all-star break: a 3-2 zone that features the 7-foot-1 Garnett at the top of the key, where his long reach and quick feet intimidate and irritate opposing point guards.

It's probably no coincidence that the Wolves are 7-3 since they started mixing "32'' into their ever-changing array of match-up zone, man-to-man, and full-court pressure defenses. They don't use it in every game, but it has become a popular option.