Editor's note: As part of "The Stein Line" every Monday, ESPN.com senior NBA writer Marc Stein takes you around the league for the latest news in "Coast to Coast."

During his recent post-game shouting match with coach John Lucas, Darius Miles spit out two words Cleveland obviously didn't want to hear from the player it acquired in exchange for Andre Miller: "Trade" and "me." The belief now, though, is that Miles' frustration had a lot more to do with the booing he received that night in the Cavs' 24-point home loss to Indiana than problems with Luke.

	Darius Miles has to do more than dunk to win over the fans in Cleveland.

As one of the league's most popular players, Miles hadn't been booed before and clearly didn't take it well. It was the most embarrassing night of Miles' young career, but a few folks close to the 21-year-old believe the episode will actually prove to be a turning point in his season. It was the strongest message yet to Miles that he can't merely dunk the ball or tap his fists to his head to impress people any more. He's going to have to play well and his team has to win more, two things Cleveland hasn't seen much of lately.

Miles is dealing with lots of new stuff these days -- fan discontent, rumors about trades, whispers about the state of his surgically repaired left knee. The Cavs' hope is that Miles rebounds half as well as Ricky Davis has from Davis' own string of run-ins with Lucas and a few teammates. After a two-game suspension for a clash with Tyrone Hill, Davis averaged 27.2 points in December and 50.9 percent shooting from 3-point range. In an 11-day span, he had three 40-point games.

Miles isn't capable of anything like that on a knee that still has Lucas holding him to a nightly load of 25 to 30 minutes, but don't assume that he'll be dumped. There is some strong sentiment in Cleveland to let the group grow together after the big Miller trade and subsequent addition of three youngsters who were handed major roles: Miles, Dajuan Wagner and Carlos Boozer.

If Larry asks, George does have a suggestion
George Karl anticipates a sitdown or phone chat at some point with Larry Brown, his successor as coach of Team USA, and George already knows one topic he'll make sure comes up.

Last-second situations.

Besides the obvious need for a longer training camp, which Brown figures to have now that NBA stars are tripping over themselves to play on the team that restores Yankee pride, Karl sees late-game execution as an overlooked edge held by Yugoslavia and Argentina -- the teams whose vets have been playing together since their teens.

"You don't, as a coach, have a lot of control in last-second situations (in the international game)," Karl said. "You don't have (as many) timeout scenarios. Argentina and Yugoslavia knew what they were going to do at the ends of games. As an NBA coach, you can coach the game with timeouts down the stretch."

Yet Karl continues to insist that his team, which finished a humbling sixth at the World Championships in Indianapolis, would have been saved had Jason Kidd been healthy. "Americans have the best point guards and the best big men, but we didn't have the best of our best. ... We didn't have that special player who lifts people up and makes people better," Karl said.

Kidd is part of a starry group -- along with Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady and now Kobe Bryant -- to commit to Team USA for the next two summers.

Ailing Allen unsurprised by Bucks' sub-par start
Milwaukee's Ray Allen is another All-Star who has volunteered for Olympic qualifying in August and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Allen, though, has been plagued by pain in both ankles and also by the Bucks' disappointing 13-19 start. Those realities have forced him to temper expectations he'll be available for the national team.

While Karl still insists that the Bucks will be "one of the teams that busts out" from the current pack of eight with 16 to 20 losses, Allen has been talking about his fears of becoming the next Grant Hill. Allen also questions whether the Bucks can climb into the playoff chase when he and Toni Kukoc -- the key acquisition in return for Glenn Robinson in the offseason -- are either sidelined or playing in pain. Those are two major issues Milwaukee can't afford on top of its well-documented trouble with defense (29th in points allowed at 100.4 points per game and 24th in field-goal defense at .446) and rebounding (27th in the league with a per-game differential of minus-3.4). There's also no escaping the Anthony Mason numbers; Milwaukee is 54-60 with Mase, compared to 52-30 the season before he arrived.

"The year we went to the Eastern Conference finals, we weren't a team at the beginning of the year that was expected to do anything," Allen said. "What you see on paper can be totally different than what you get. But we're still learning. This is a fairly new team and we're still learning each other, learning how to win."

Wizards' Collins: Good D will lead to PT for Kwame
It's a new year but the same pattern for Kwame Brown, whose playing time continues to bounce up and down as Washington attempts to hang on in the race for No. 8 in the East.

	The more Kwame Brown doesn't play, the more teams are apt to inquire about acquiring him.

Brown was treated to 27 minutes in Thursday's rout of Chicago and responded with a career-best 20 points plus 12 boards against fellow 2001 draftee Tyson Chandler. The next night, in a double-overtime thriller against division-leading Indiana, Brown played five minutes to Charles Oakley's 26.

Figure on more minutes for the vets the better Washington does, and expect more inquiries regarding Brown's availability as the league's Feb. 20 trade deadline approaches. Teams are bound to call and ask: "Well, if you guys don't need him ..."

It's up to Wiz coach Doug Collins to keep Brown from feeling like an outsider while placating Michael Jordan and his win-now posse.

"We're trying to win and at the same time develop these guys," Collins said. "So some nights Kwame gets seven minutes and sometimes he gets 30. But if you ask me why Kwame wouldn't get (more) minutes, it would be more defensive-oriented than it would be offense.

"I don't think people realize the nuances that go into your defenses -- just knowing how to play certain people, where to play them, how to trap them, how to help. It takes a while for a young player to learn how to do those things."

Playoffs? No, a different sort of sweep in reach for N.Y.
Those wacky Knicks are six games under .500 and yet on the verge of recording victories over each of the league's four first-place teams. New York has somehow already beaten Atlantic-leading New Jersey, Central-leading Indiana and Sacramento, the king of the Pacific.

The chance for a sweep comes Jan. 24, when they play host to Dallas on ESPN. The Knicks will have a reasonable chance, too, since the Mavericks play in Philadelphia the night before ... and since the Mavericks, believe it or not, haven't won at Madison Square Garden since 1990. New York has won the past two MSG meetings in overtime, last season's victory halting a 10-game Dallas win streak.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here.