NEW ORLEANS — The Seattle SuperSonics got its five-game road trip off to a rough start down in the Big Easy.
Recovering from a slow start, the Sonics challenged New Orleans in the second half, but could not find their shooting stroke late and fell to the Hornets, 91-88, Sunday night in front of a sparse crowd of 10,773 onlookers.
Down a point with seven seconds remaining, Seattle had a chance to take the lead after the Hornets’ guard Jannero Pargo missed two free throws.
Seattle’s Nick Collison grabbed the miss, but Seattle had no timeouts. Collison looked for someone to outlet the ball to but couldn’t find a guard, so he flung it to Kevin Durant at half court but Durant caught the ball out-of-bounds.
“It’s just a play you have to try and make,” Wally Szczerbiak said. “You have to think on the fly. But there’s just nothing you can do. We’ll forget it, and we’ll learn from it.
“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have a timeout, because P.J. was drawing up some good stuff to get some good shots.”
The Hornets’ Chris Paul was fouled on the ensuing possession with 1.5 seconds to go. He made both free throws to put his team ahead three points, leaving Seattle (5-16) a chance to tie the game. But needing a 3-pointer to tie, Szczerbiak took a pass from Chris Wilcox and shot an off-balance 17-footer, which rimmed off.
With two injured starters out in Peja Stojakovic and Morris Peterson, Paul led the Hornets (14-7) with 29 points, 10 assists and two steals. Kevin Durant’s 23 points paced the Sonics. Szczerbiak poured in 14 points off of the bench for Seattle, and Earl Watson finished with 12 points and eight assists.
But Seattle’s sluggish start had the Sonics playing behind for much of the game. The Sonics shot 1-for-9 from the floor at the onset and fell behind 15-3 early in the first. Seattle trailed by double digits most of the first half, and went into halftime down 52-41.
“We were lucky to be where we were,” Seattle coach P.J. Carlesimo said of his team’s first-half performance. “We were terrible. Our defense was a disgrace. … I don’t know where we were. Our heads just weren’t in the game and we weren’t ready to play.”
Seattle came out with much more energy in the second half, crashing the boards and contesting shots on the defensive end. The Sonics outscored New Orleans 24-15 in the third quarter as a result and only trailed 67-65.
Seattle had to play the fourth quarter without Kurt Thomas, who had helped get them back in the game. The veteran center suffered a cut inside his mouth when he went for a steal from behind against a driving Pargo, and had to leave the game less than two minutes into the fourth to get three stitches. Thomas didn’t return, and finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Luke Ridnour also played for the first time since suffering a partially torn left quad at Orlando Nov. 13. Ridnour finished with three points and an assist in 12 minutes.
“I’ve still got some soreness,” Ridnour said. “But just to be able to test it, it felt good.”
Seattle briefly took a 78-77 lead on a Durant dunk off a nice back-door feed from Collison with 4:23 left.
But the Hornets regained the lead on a long, off-balance 3-pointer from Paul with the shot clock expiring, for an 80-78 advantage. After a Seattle miss, Paul hit a floater down the middle of the lane, pushing the Hornets lead to 82-78, and the Sonics played from behind the rest of the game, with Durant and Watson hitting key 3-pointers down the stretch to keep Seattle close.
Fastbreaks: Delonte West said X-rays on his foot revealed no tear. West, who has missed the last three games with plantar fasciitis, said he would like to be ready by Tuesday’s game at Chicago. “It just flared up pretty bad and I’m just trying to calm it down,” West said. Added Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo. “I think with plantars, it’s just a question of how you feel. Sometimes it responds quickly, sometimes it doesn’t.” … Out since Nov. 11, Seattle center Robert Swift continues to work on rehabilitating his right knee and remains out indefinitely. Swift is traveling with the team on the five-game road trip. “That’s a hard thing, I think more so for a young guy,” Carlesimo said about Swift’s rehab. “Some of the veterans in this league have been through those things like that a couple times, and they get in there and it’s business as usual. And they’re already careful about what they eat and they know how to take care of themselves. They know how to facilitate the rehab a little bit. Sometimes with young guys it’s a learning process.”
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