Still, with his ability to win rebounding battles against more athletic players and his willingness to concentrate on defense and think about scoring only when called upon, Grant brings to mind the best of Rodman, without the sideshow theatrics. He scores when we ask him to, but he knows we need his defense and rebounding every night, and he keeps giving it to us.' 'That was the series that made people start to notice Brian more,' says Blazers coach Mike Dunleavy, 'but he just did the same thing we've seen him do all year. But Grant got his revenge in Game 6, in which he helped limit Malone to eight points on 3-for-16 shooting as Portland won 92-80 and clinched the series. Grant took an elbow to the jaw in Game 1, for which Malone was fined $10,000, and then suffered the gash above his eye in Game 5. He outplayed the Phoenix Suns' Tom Gugliotta in the Blazers' first-round sweep, averaging 19.3 points and 9.3 rebounds, and then survived a memorable duel with Malone in which the Mailman apparently mistook Grant's face for an armrest, placing his elbow there repeatedly. That's why I go see kids in the hospital a lot.'īut nothing has contributed to Grant's popularity as much as his impressive play, especially as the matchups have grown increasingly difficult during the playoffs. 'Knowing that your mom was coming when she got off work or your uncles were going to come see you didn't keep you from feeling lonely all the time.

'They had me in this tent, this bubble,' he says. When he was in second grade, Brian contracted double pneumonia and was in the hospital for weeks. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award this year. We already would have known the reason why Grant has become the type of guy who will buy a Santa hat and toys at Christmastime and make spur-of-the-moment visits to children's hospitals, which is the kind of philanthropy that earned him the NBA's J. Then we would have known it was completely in character for him to spend the idle months during the NBA lockout regularly making the two-hour round-trip from Portland to Sublimity, Ore., to visit terminally ill 12-year-old Dash Thomas, a brain cancer victim to whom he dedicated this season after Dash died in February. Grant is 27 years old and has been in the league for five years, and we really should have been paying attention to him.

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