SEATTLE – Good starts to the NBA season are becoming commonplace for the Seattle SuperSonics.

Good finishes are a little less frequent.

For the third consecutive year, Seattle has opened its schedule with an encouraging flurry. The Sonics have played five games to date and already have four victories, good enough for a share of the lead in the new Northwest Division.

Great news, of course, though tempered by the fact that Seattle has been here before.

Yep, a year ago the Sonics won six of their first eight games, but slipped the rest of the way to finish with a disappointing 37-45 record. And in 2002-03 Seattle won eight of its first 10 games but again ended up under .500, this time 40-42.

Such memories explain why none of Seattle’s coaches or players is very giddy about the team’s surprising start.

”It’s a long season,” cautioned coach Nate McMillan.

”It’s still early,” added forward Rashard Lewis.

Seattle, which hosts the 4-1 Toronto Raptors tonight at KeyArena, went through a light and rather brief practice on Thursday, which is often the reward when the team is playing well. Afterward, there was a discussion about what happened the last two years, and in McMillan’s mind it had more to do with other teams than the Sonics themselves.

Typically, he said, ”other teams were still trying to find their rhythm and get their execution down at the beginning of the season, and we were pretty sharp. I’ve always felt that it takes a lot of teams a month to get in shape and to get their execution better, and if you’re ready out of the gate you can win some games that are tough games.”

Eventually, though, the other teams ”got on a roll and caught up to what we were doing.”

Lewis remembers how ”we’ve always had good training camps where everybody was in shape, and I think we just caught other teams (off guard). But then we got comfortable early on in the season and we just kind of lost focus. We were a young team and we weren’t used to winning like that.”

Perhaps the biggest difference between what is happening this season and what happened in 2002-03 and ‘03-04 is the way the Sonics are winning. Several of Seattle’s victories in those years were in close games, but this season each Sonics win has been a blowout. In addition, Seattle has been outstanding with its rebounding and defense, and no Sonics team has been able to say that in some time.

McMillan, in fact, has long preached aggressive defense, but this season the message seems to be getting through.

”I feel comfortable when I know the defense is there,” he said. ”The last couple of years, the defense was OK, but (Seattle’s wins) were more about scoring. But I like what we’re doing right now. We’re playing hard and we’re defending.”

”Our true test will come when we don’t shoot the ball well,” said guard Antonio Daniels. ”We have a lot of guys on this team who are capable of putting the ball in the basket, but when that shot isn’t going we need to play defense with the same intensity we’ve had these past four games.”

Statistically, there is no question why the Sonics are playing so well. A year ago, the Sonics averaged 97.1 points a game while giving up 97.8. So far this season Seattle is scoring 103.8 points a game and the opponents 91.8.

In rebounding, the Sonics averaged 39.3 a game last season while giving up 42.7. This season Seattle is up to 41.2 while opponents have dropped to 33.2.

”We’ve been playing the game the right way,” McMillan said. ”We’ve worked hard. We’ve played together. And when you do that you have a chance to win.

”This year,” he added, ”if we keep playing the way we’re playing now, we’re going to have an opportunity to keep winning ballgames.”