DALLAS -- Handy detail about the playoffs: Hoopla generates itself.

So there's no stretching necessary to declare that Kevin Garnett faces the biggest game of his career tonight.

Repeat: No exaggeration.

Game 2 of Wolves-Mavericks, you see, is Garnett's first chance to respond to the loudest negativity ever sent his way. A stat line of 19 points, 21 rebounds, six assists and two blocks in the series opener didn't add up to much insulation from the masses, as folks grow increasingly doubtful about Super Kev's ability to get Minnesota out of the first round.

	Kevin Garnett was even criticized by his childhood idol, Magic Johnson.

You point to the one shot Garnett attempted in the final four-plus minutes of Dallas' 101-94 victory on Sunday. You point to the solitary rebound bucket he registered against San Antonio in the final six minutes of Game 1 in last spring's opening round. You point mostly to the Wolves' perfectly blemished 0-for-5 history in Round 1, including a 5-16 overall record that has supplanted New Jersey's 10-31 mark for the worst playoff winning percentage -- a Mendozian .238 -- in history.

You see and hear more pointing now because the Wolves have never had a more favorable first-round matchup. Looking at who they've played and who they've employed and how they've finished the regular season the past five seasons, it's tough to contradict the shared suggestion from Flip Saunders and Garnett that the Wolves really couldn't have won any of the previous playoff excursions. Yet this is different.

This is the first time Minnesota has been seeded as high as No. 5, and it got exactly what it privately wished for when the Mavericks -- as opposed to the Spurs or, worse, the Lakers -- slipped to No. 4. This is also a team that just fell to 0-6 in Game 1s despite outboarding the Mavericks by 19, outrunning them for a 24-6 differential in fast-break points and outscoring them by a tidy 26-2 in second-chance points.

All of which helps to explain why this is really the first time Garnett is getting microscoped coast-to-coast. There have always been occasional protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul about KG being too willing to defer late in games or maybe even doomed to a lifetime of sidekick status, a la Scottie Pippen, in spite of the richest contract on the NBA map. Only now, it's a national story.

Turn on the TV and Magic Johnson, Garnett's idol, is doing the castigating. Good thing for Garnett that Charles Barkley had the weekend off.

"Until we get that off our backs," Saunders says of the first-round stigma, "that's probably always going to be there. For him, myself and the organization."

Garnett, to his credit, hasn't shied away from the widespread urgings that he demand the ball down the stretch. He sat down before the series and spoke openly of his first-round drought, saying: "It is there. It is a fact. That fact sometimes has to be addressed." After Game 1, in which he missed 11 of his first 15 shots, Garnett placed the blame squarely on his slender shoulders. "You control it," he said. "It's not like someone else just casts a spell. You control everything that happens out there. So I'm at my own fault. It's not like, poof, abracadabra."

He must have known that the questions would come eventually, as they have for so many others. Garnett is so universally respected around the league, by coaches and peers and scribes, that he has mostly dodged the barbs until now -- unlike a Chris Webber or a Grant Hill.

	Five Years of Futility
	Here's a quick look at the Timberwolves' failures in each of the previous five postseasons, along with the scoring, rebounding and assist averages Kevin Garnett put up in those series.
				Garnett
		Opp.	Result	Averages
	2001	SAN	L, 3-1	21.0-12.0-4.3
	2000	POR	L, 3-1	18.8-10.8-8.8
	1999	SAN	L, 3-1	21.8-12.0-3.8
	1998	SEA	L, 3-2	15.8-9.6-4.0
	1997	HOU	L, 3-0	17.3-9.3-3.7

Sacramento's Webber has been branded with a penchant for crunch-time inferiority ever since that ill-fated timeout he called at Michigan. The rep is made worse by another fact: Webber has won only one playoff series in his first eight seasons ... with his Kings somewhat fortunate to be sitting 1-1 with Utah the way they started their opening-round encounter.

Orlando's Hill, meanwhile, gets it on two fronts. Hill is 0-4 lifetime in the playoffs, and he hasn't even gotten that far the past two seasons because of the ankle trouble. And "fragile" might be an even harsher whisper for him than for Webber.

Garnett -- in spite of Saunders' now-daily stint as a goalie in another round of "Is KG Too Unselfish?" -- still hasn't been hammered like those two. He just averaged better than 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for the third straight season, and he always plays incredibly hard. No one has ever accused Garnett of floating. If anything, before slamming what Super Kev does, folks are more likely to point out that Garnett doesn't have enough help around him to make a playoff dent.

"Every time we've come (to the playoffs), it's a different team," insists Saunders, whose own sterling reputation is bound to suffer if dealt another early exit.

"Whether it's Garnett or (Stephon) Marbury in their first year, or losing (Tom) Gugliotta, then losing Marbury and losing Malik Sealy and Joe Smith and now having this team," Saunders continued. "The only constants have been KG, myself and Sam Mitchell."

Then, on the other side, you have a Dallas squad that looks more like the league's deepest team every day. Dirk Nowitzki heaped more suffering on Garnett by totaling 30 points and 15 rebounds on two bad ankles while KG was being blamed for Sunday's defeat. The bare truth is that Nowitzki could be considerably quieter tonight and not at all prevent the Mavericks from snatching an increasingly rare 2-0 edge, since Steve Nash or Michael Finley or Nick Van Exel are also around and quite willing to volunteer for hero duty.

"Dirk has a hell of a supporting cast, I will say that," Garnett said. "He should definitely cherish that. "He should be thankful because, believe me, it could be a lot tougher -- when the defense is keying on you every night, and (opponents) don't have too many other people to worry about."

Wolves general manager Kevin McHale, on the eve of Game 1, acknowledged that "if we lose again, there will definitely be some concern: 'Can these guys do it when it counts?' " Yet his tone was much different afterward, when McHale launched an impassioned defense of Garnett's efforts to make the right plays with the Wolves' no-mistakes playmaker, Terrell Brandon, out injured.

"In AAU, they must not teach passing anymore, because no one can throw it into the post," McHale said. "If I played on this team, I'd have slit my wrists already."

	“	In AAU, they must not teach passing anymore, because no one can throw it into the post. If I played on this team, I'd have slit my wrists already." ”
		— Kevin McHale, Timberwolves GM

Dare we say it's a little too soon for that. If we've learned anything from the first few days of the NBA tournament, it's clear that you best not draw any finite conclusions from what might have happened in Game 1. Especially a Game 1 where the home team admittedly lucks out. Or have you already forgotten the Nash heave from halfcourt? Or the banked triple from Raef LaFrentz?

Furthermore, if the Wolves have a real worry tonight, it's that Garnett gets so worked up plotting his response to the criticism that he thinks too much or plays a lot worse than Sunday. It's important for Saunders to establish some Garnett dominance down low -- making plays, again, not necessarily forcing shots -- but not at the expense of Wally Szczerbiak.

Overlooked in all this KG hoopla is the fact that Szczerbiak had just five points in Sunday's first half, 15 overall and zero free-throw attempts. Wally needs some touches, too, if Minnesota is to crack the magical 100-point barrier for the first time in -- no exaggeration -- 19 playoff games.

"Me and KG are going to have to pull our weight," Szczerbiak said.

Adds KG: "It's only torture if you let it be torture. It's hell that we're missing Terrell, so here we are back to square one again with the adversity. But one of these days, it's not going to be there. Hopefully this is the day, the week, the month."

Is this the night?

Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.