By JOHN DENTON
Florida Today

ORLANDO, Fla. - For Orlando Magic rookie forward Drew Gooden, the past month was the equivalent of a flashy sports car being slowed by two flat tires.

With a severely sprained big toe on his right foot and painful tendinitis in his left knee, Gooden often felt as though he was trying to jump with cinder blocks tied to his feet. The injuries seemed to sap all the life from his legs and made him a shadow of the player he was when he first joined the Magic following the Feb. 19 trade with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Now, one month after injuring his toe when he tripped over the foot of teammate Pat Garrity, Gooden finally feels whole again. Coming off one of the finest practices he's had since joining the Magic, the 6-foot-10, 227-pound power forward pronounced himself ready to shoulder the load inside when the Magic open their first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday.

"I'm kind of surprised the way my body is feeling," Gooden said Friday. "The time off did me good. (The toe) hurt everything I do. My left knee was already hurt and my right toe was hurting, so I basically had two bad wheels out there. I think the toe even caused me to aggravate the knee even more when I was playing on it. But with the rest, it gave me time to heal for the playoffs and I'm ready to go."

The Magic will need every bit of life Gooden can provide against a Pistons team that features rugged center Ben Wallace, arguably the most feared big man in the NBA today. Wallace barely missed leading the league in rebounding (averaging 15.4 per game) and blocks (3.15) for a second consecutive season and is a favorite to repeat as the winner of the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year.

Recent memories of the postseason are often disheartening for the Magic, considering the way their frontline was shoved around the past two seasons. Two years ago, Milwaukee that knocked Tracy McGrady around and pounded the Magic on the offensive glass. And last season, Charlotte's massive frontline repeatedly pounded the Magic inside, ruling the low post on both ends of the floor.

But Orlando is hoping that will change this season because of an injection of athleticism and youth along its frontline. Gooden gives them their first legitimate scorer on the low block in years. Steven Hunter, fully recovered after tearing a knee ligament and missing the first three months of the season, has the potential to be a top-tier shot blocker. And Andrew DeClercq has played some of the best basketball of his career over the second half of the season, swatting shots and crashing the glass with reckless abandon.

"We're going to have to rebound extremely well, defense will be key and we can't try and change who we are," Magic coach Doc Rivers said. "When you have a veteran team, you have that luxury, but we're a young team. We're not changing. So if Detroit is going to beat us, they're going to do it playing our style of basketball. We're not changing for anybody."

One potential change along the frontline could be the possible loss of Garrity, who left practice early Friday to get a magnetic resonance imaging test on what he thought was a strained groin muscle. However, tests showed that Garrity has a deep bone bruise on his pelvis. Garrity, who ranked 17th in the NBA in 3-point shooting (39.6 percent), is expected to play limited minutes off the bench.

Wallace also won't be at full strength. He suffered a sprained knee ligament on April 6 when teammate Tayshaun Prince fell against his leg. Wallace has not played since and returned to practice only at half speed on Friday. He plans to play, but with a brace on his left knee.

The Magic believe that Wallace will play. When Wallace played the 1999-2000 season in Orlando, he played in the final 40 games with a broken bone in his foot. And because he had wrist surgery before that season, he was unable to lift weights the entire year. Still, he was the unquestioned MVP of a no-name team that scrapped its way to 41 wins.

"I know I can go on the floor, but I'm not going to go out there if I can't play the way I know I'm capable of playing," said Wallace, who's wife Chanda gave birth to the couple's first child Thursday night. "That's not only going to hurt me, but most importantly that would hurt this team. I don't want to have my teammates depending on me if I can't be there to support them. If I'm not 100 percent and I can't help the team then I think it would be selfish to play. I would be holding somebody back who could maybe do the job better than me."

And what would if be like if Wallace wasn't there to anchor the NBA's best defense? Said Detroit coach Rick Carlisle: "How would you like to play a hockey game without a goalie? It's not quite that extreme, but we'd miss him and we'd hope to get him back. But this team, this franchise is not going to compromise anybody's future by rushing him back before he is 100 percent."

Gooden said he was 90 percent healthy following Friday's practice. He conceded that he probably returned too early the first time from the toe injury that he injured March 19. He missed the next five games, but wasn't himself when he came back for four games because he was unable to push off his right foot.

Orlando needs the kind of production it got from him in the first two weeks after he was acquired in the trade for Mike Miller if it is to have a chance in the playoffs. Gooden posted double-doubles in six of his first seven games. During that stretch, he had a 26-point, 16 rebound game against Milwaukee and impressive rebound games of 18, 14 and 11.

"At that time, my body was 100 percent healthy and now I'd say I'm probably 90 percent," Gooden said. "The healing process is coming along, so I think I can go back to the way I was playing when I first got here.

"There are a lot of expectations and pressure, but that's what they made the trade for. They want me to be a presence down low and I think I can bring that."