Freshman Kyle Sikora played just two minutes after starting Wednesday’s game after spraining his ankle in practice Tuesday. That opened the way for fellow frosh Dante Williams, who scored a career-high seven points, including his first 3-pointer, which put the Grizzlies up three right before the half. He played a total of seven minutes.
“I’ve been on him lately,” Kampe said. “For a freshman, he hit a huge 3 before the half. He finished by the basket for us with the pressure late in the game.
“He’s long and athletic and can guard. If he can finish like that, we’ll play him more.”
In Sikora’s absence, Kampe was forced to play Corey Petros 34 minutes, where he grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds. Kampe will have more opportunity to use Williams Saturday, because he doesn’t expect Sikora to play in Oakland’s second-round game against Buffalo. 


Switching it up
After not guarding the ball-screen well, Kampe switched Oakland defensive strategy.
“The move to zone was big for us,” he said. “We don’t play much zone, but it took the pick and roll out of the game and we dared them to shoot and they were not having a good shooting night. It didn’t take a lot of intelligence to realize we should play some zone.