SEATTLE – For Luke Ridnour, it was hardly a happy birthday.
For Jason Terry, it was a swell homecoming.
The two Western Washington natives, both point guards, squared off at KeyArena on Sunday night, and midway through the fourth quarter it was Ridnour – playing on his 24th birthday – and his Seattle SuperSonics teammates who seemed likely to celebrate, benefit of an 11-point lead.
Undaunted, though, the visiting Dallas Mavericks mounted a determined comeback over the remaining minutes and it was Terry, a product of Seattle’s Franklin High School, who capped the rally with a game-winning 3-point shot with eight seconds left.
The Sonics had two shots to tie in the closing seconds, but one attempt was blocked and the other missed. Dallas added a final free throw for a 95-92 decision that snapped Seattle’s five-game winning streak.
Despite the loss, which came before a sellout gathering of 17,072, the Sonics are still an impressive 9-3 against NBA rivals with the five best records heading into next weekend’s All-Star break – 2-1 vs. San Antonio, 1-1 vs. Phoenix, 2-0 vs. Miami, 1-1 vs. Dallas and 3-0 vs. Sacramento.
That was, perhaps, the silver lining to a night of basketball that was otherwise disheartening. Seattle seemingly had this game in hand, but ended up missing all 10 field goal tries in the last 4:15 of the game. The Sonics scored just two points in that stretch, a pair of free throws from Ridnour who would finish with 17 points and eight assists.
No one suffered more severely than All-Star guard Ray Allen, who was 4-for-17 from the field, including 1-for-8 from the 3-point stripe, for a season-low 10 points.
”I missed shots and it was no different than any other time when I miss shots,” Allen said simply. ”I had open shots all night and I just missed them.”
Still, he went on, ”we could have won that game regardless of what was going on with me. Individually it wasn’t my night, but we still could have won the game. We didn’t manage the game well down the stretch. … We just had some bad miscues on defense. Offensively, we didn’t need to score another bucket down the stretch if we could have got some stops.”
A case in point was Seattle’s defense on Terry’s game-winning shot. Preceding the play was a Dallas fast break that resulted in Allen guarding Mavericks superstar forward Dirk Nowitzki. Delighted to get a matchup with the 7-foot Nowitzki against the 6-5 Allen, the Mavericks immediately went inside. As the Sonics sent defensive help Dallas worked the ball back out, but Seattle never adjusted to get a bigger defender on Nowitzki.
The ball went back inside and as the Sonics collapsed again – this time with a pair of defenders hurrying to Allen’s aid – the Mavericks made two quick passes to find Terry completely unguarded. His shot from a step behind the 3-point stripe and just right of the key was true, lifting Dallas from a one-point deficit to a 94-92 lead.
”The ball ended up in my hands and I knocked it down … which kind of made up for the way I was playing,” said Terry, who until that moment was just 1-for-7 from the field.
”He should be proud of that because I didn’t think he played all that well the whole game,” said Dallas coach Don Nelson. ”That big shot gave him a reprieve from the coach.”
The Sonics had two chances on their final possession. Guard Antonio Daniels tried driving to the basket, but had his looping layin try swatted out of bounds by Mavericks forward Josh Howard with three seconds on the clock. On the inbounds play, Daniels passed to forward Rashard Lewis, who lofted a turnaround jumper from about 16 feet that bounced high off the rim and struck a wire supporting the shot clock atop the backboard, giving possession to the Mavericks.
Dallas got a free throw from guard Darrell Armstrong in the last second to close out the scoring.
”We seemed like we were a step slow,” said Sonics coach Nate McMillan. ”For pretty much three quarters I didn’t see the energy and the intensity we normally play with. Then we got some energy and we started scrapping, and we made some shots and got some stops. But we had some breakdowns in the fourth quarter that cost us and we ended up giving away a game we had control of.”
Nelson, meanwhile, figures his team benefited from Seattle’s schedule, which saw the Sonics win an emotional game vs. Sacramento on Thursday, travel to Phoenix for another emotional victory on Friday, then have a mechanical problem with the team plane that delayed their return to Seattle until Saturday afternoon.
”I don’t know that we could have won it if (the Sonics) had a fresh team with fresh legs,” Nelson said. ”I don’t think we should be too proud of ourselves on this one. We fought hard and we played well enough to win, but you’re going to have to play better than we played tonight if you’re going to win in Seattle under normal circumstances.”
”The Sonics are a tough team,” Terry added. ”They’re for real. A lot of people sleep on them and think that they’re just having an OK season, but they’re a good team. Our main goal was to come in here and get a win, however we had to do it. Good teams always find a way and we did that tonight.”
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