BearTalk

For one night, at least, Nikola Knezevic was Jorge Gutierrez.

With Gutierrez, the Bears’ sophomore defensive specialist, sidelined for the second straight game by a sprained right knee, Knezevic came off the bench with less than 1o minutes left and sparked Cal’s 67-59 win over USC. Knezevic took over defensive duties against Dwight Lewis, who had scored 16 points, primarily making life miserable for Patrick Christopher.

Mike Montgomery told Nikola, “Shut him down. Don’t let him touch the ball,” and Knezevic basically did that.

Knezevic scored just two points, but Monty said, “He was the key to the thing.”

Long after the game — and after much of the press room had cleared out — Knezevic found his way to the interview podium for a much-deserved curtain call.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

On his assignment: “Lewis was pretty hot in the first half, so just coming in the game (I was) kind of the glue, replacing Jorge’s energy. (Defense) was the only way I think for us to win the game.  Out of good `D’ we had pretty much an open floor and a lot of fastbreaks. That’s how we have to play.

On face-guarding Lewis: “For me, that’s kind of the easiest part.  I just had to do what I had to do. Coach asked me to come off the bench and be the stopper. I think I did a pretty good job.”

On whether Lewis said anything to him: ”He said,`Man, you have to give me a little bit of space.’ ”

How it felt to play substantial role in a big win: ”It felt really good.  I know how good I can play defense and I’m just waiting for an opportinty to show how I can play. I  really believe if we want to be in the top two or three teams in this conference, we have to play defense. Everything has to start with `D.’ ”

On the Bears’ troubles in some of their defeats, including Wednesday’s 76-75 overtime loss to UCLA: “We weren’t mentally strong to come back with the defense. We thought we had to outscore the opponent to win. We knew coming into this game, whoever was going to be the most physical team was going to win the game. I think in the second half, that was us.”