SEATTLE – He was easily the smallest man on the court. Heck, he might have been the smallest adult male at KeyArena on Tuesday night.
That said, 5-foot-5 Earl Boykins came up huge for the visiting Denver Nuggets.
The youthful looking Boykins, who could probably pass for a high school player, reached the NBA record book with an astonishing 15 points in overtime to lift the lowly Nuggets to a 116-110 victory over the stunned Seattle SuperSonics.
It was, quite frankly, one of the most improbable finishes for a Sonics game in recent memory.
Boykins, the seventh-year point guard out of Eastern Michigan University, scored with two mid-range jump shots early in overtime to put Denver on top to stay. He followed with a 3-pointer from left of the key and a free throw moments later, giving him eight points in barely more than two minutes of OT.
Later, he snuck inside for a short jumper, was fouled from behind by Seattle’s Luke Ridnour, and completed the 3-point play. Then, in the last minute and with the Sonics fouling in an attempt to catch up, he dropped in four straight free throws.
He finished overtime having taken five shots from the field, missing just one, and seven tries from the free throw line, also missing once. It gave him 18 points for the game – he played 22 minutes of regulation with just three points. The previous NBA record for overtime scoring was 14 points by Indiana’s Butch Carter in a 1983-84 game against Boston.
“Earl was just doing what we needed him to do,” said interim Denver head coach Michael Cooper. “He’s like a little water bug out there. He creates mismatches and he always has the mismatch with speed.”
“Earl is very quick, and I know that because I played against him in college,” sighed guard Antonio Daniels, one of the few players not to bolt from Seattle’s locker room after the game. “And when he is knocking his shot down, he’s tough to guard.”
Well, not that tough, suggested Sonics coach Nate McMillan.
“You have to keep him in front of you and make him shoot over you,” said McMillan, his jaw tight. “This guy pump-faked us and we had (much taller) people on him who didn’t need to jump. You just have to play (fundamental) defense.”
Sloppy defense, in fact, was McMillan’s primary complaint after this one. The Sonics, he said, seemed content to outscore Denver and that strategy fell apart when Seattle shot poorly from the field.
“Our game plan was to attack the basket,” he groused. “But if you take 31 3s, you’re not attacking the basket. You’re trying to make this a shootout. We just didn’t execute offensively. And whenever we took the quick shot, they ran off that and they ran off our turnovers.”
Seattle, he noted, gave up 22 fast break points and 52 points in the paint. Neither stat suggests good defense.
Nor did the Sonics defend well in the late moments of regulation. With Denver trailing 95-93, guard Andre Miller had a 3-pointer from the left angle that nicked the rim and bounced away. Nuggets forward DerMarr Johnson bulled his way inside to snag the rebound over Seattle’s Rashard Lewis and put up a short shot that was an airball – right into the hands of teammate Marcus Camby, who scored on a layin with 1.8 on the clock.
Seattle had a chance to win with a shot at the buzzer and got a good look from guard Ray Allen, but his 18-foot turnaround try from the left baseline kicked off the rim, sending the game to OT.
By all appearances, the Sonics were outworked by Denver and probably because they took the Nuggets lightly. Denver, after all, has already fallen to Seattle twice this season. Despite a coaching change from Jeff Bzdelik to Cooper late last month, the stumbling Nuggets had lost seven of their previous eight games and 13 of the past 16.
In addition, Denver was without forward Kenyon Martin, the team’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, who sat out due to a bout with strep throat. Then, leading scorer Carmelo Anthony, another forward, left early in the fourth quarter with a sprained ankle when he landed on the foot of Seattle’s Nick Collison after shooting a jump shot.
“We’re all NBA players, and they’re an NBA team, just like we are,” Daniels said. “They’ve been struggling of late, but you can’t afford to play records or names. You can’t afford to worry about who’s playing and who isn’t. You still have to go out with the same effort. And we didn’t.”
When it was over, Boykins was not the only hero for Denver. Guard Andre Miller was outstanding, scoring 30 points and adding nine rebounds and five assists. Equally superb was center Marcus Camby, who delivered 25 points, 24 rebounds, five assists and a blocked shot.
The Sonics, meanwhile, got 25 points of the bench from forward Vlade Radmanovic and 20 from Daniels, but the starters simply did not play well. Combined, Seattle’s first five was just 18-for-54 from the field (.333 percent).
“We should definitely be disappointed in ourselves with the effort we put forth,” Daniels said. “But this happens sometimes. But we win together and we lose together. Now we just have to pick our heads up and worry about Minnesota on Friday.”
Seattle’s Rashard Lewis returned to the starting lineup after a two-game absence with tendinitis in his left knee. A final decision about Lewis’ availability was not made until just before tipoff when Lewis, who had gone to the court for early warm-ups, told McMillan he could play.
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