Doing the dirty work

SEATTLE – There is little about Reggie Evans that is smooth, graceful or refined.

Which is precisely what the Seattle SuperSonics love about him.

In the business of professional basketball, where everyone wants to score points and show up in highlight films, Evans blissfully goes his own way. A rugged 6-foot-8 forward, he is content to play defense, set screens, grab rebounds and otherwise use his muscle in the brutal world beneath the basket.

And in the early days of the 2004-05 NBA season, what Evans has done has been a big reason the surprising Sonics today sit atop the league’s new Northwest Division standings.

“I really like what he’s doing,” said Seattle coach Nate McMillan. “We need the energy he brings and the way he scraps. This team is feeding off of that.”

That much was evident on Friday night when the Sonics won their fifth straight game with a thrilling 88-87 decision over the Toronto Raptors. Evans played 38 minutes, one off his career high, and gathered 16 rebounds, also one shy of a career best. In addition, he had 13 points, two steals and helped defend Toronto’s Vince Carter on the final play of the game in which the Raptors’ superstar missed a reverse layin, preserving Seattle’s win.

At Saturday’s practice, team owner Howard Schultz dropped by and made a specific point of seeking out Evans for a handshake and some words of praise.

Evans and newcomer Danny Fortson have given the Sonics a bruising pair of power forwards that has helped turn around the team’s most glaring deficiency of a year ago – rebounding. With Evans averaging 9.8 rebounds a game and Fortson chipping in 7.8, the Sonics have raised their 2003-04 rebound average of 39.3 – dead last in the NBA – to 42.0 this season.

Heading into Saturday’s games, Seattle was No. 1 in the league in opponents’ rebound average at 33.5 and first again in rebound differential at 8.5.

And if the Sonics have any hope of ending a two-year drought from the playoffs, those kinds of numbers have to continue.

“The good teams, the teams that are contending, are right there at the top in rebounding,” McMillan said. To be successful, “you have to be able to rebound the ball.”

The arrival of Fortson, he went on, seems to have lifted all the Sonics, but Evans in particular. Though the two wage heated practice battles, there is no animosity between them. Rather, it is a healthy rivalry where neither one wants to be outdone by the other.

“It’s competition in practice because I don’t want him to get a rebound over me and he doesn’t want me to get a rebound over him,” Evans said. “But it’s all love between me and Danny. We encourage each other lot.”

“Danny is a guy who plays similar to Reggie and I think they feed off each other,” McMillan said. “They feed off of how aggressive they can be in the paint and on the boards. They support each other, and I think Danny has helped motivate Reggie.”

Knowing that Fortson, Nick Collison and Vlade Radmanovic would all be vying for minutes at power forward, Evans “knew he had to bring his ‘A’ game this season,” McMillan said. “He came into training camp, right from the start, and has played well.”

Evans, in his third season after joining the Sonics as an undrafted free agent from the University of Iowa, says there are no real secrets to his rebounding prowess. He does try to position himself on the opposite side of the basket from the shooter, figuring the ball is more likely to bounce that way, but beyond that, he said, “it’s all about desire, determination and will.

“It’s just about working hard. You just have to want the ball, and then you have to do your best to go get it.”

Asked about his goals this season, Evans says he has just one.

“I want to make it to the playoffs,” he said. “I’m in my third year and I haven’t made it to the playoffs yet, and now I want to see how that feels. My first year I didn’t even watch the playoffs (on television). My second year I did watch the playoffs and it was fun, so now that’s my goal. I want to make the playoffs.”