SEATTLE – Invincible through their first nine games at KeyArena this season, the Seattle SuperSonics have proven to be much more mortal in the last five.
So it was on Tuesday night as the Philadelphia 76ers rolled into town and rolled out with a convincing 114-107 victory. The surging Sixers, who have won five straight road games and seven of nine overall, went on top to stay midway through the first quarter and enjoyed a double-digit margin through most of the final three periods.
The Sonics, who have lost three of their last five games at KeyArena and have dropped to 11-3 at home this season, made several runs at Philadelphia through the second half, but could never come closer than three points in the third quarter and six points in the fourth.
“Philadelphia basically controlled the game,” said Sonics coach Nate McMillan. “It was just a night where they were a better team.”
Seattle was undone by tepid shooting (39-for-87, .448), and in particular by a disappointing effort at the 3-point stripe. The Sonics, who have led the NBA in 3-point percentage much of the season (they are currently No. 2), managed to connect on just eight 3s in 33 attempts, a mere .242 percentage. Time after time, Seattle had open chances from the perimeter, but had those shots bounce off the rim.
“We were getting the same looks as we usually do,” said Seattle guard Luke Ridnour, “but we can’t rely on that night in and night out, to hit 3s all the time. We’ve got to find different ways to score. But I think we still scored enough points to win the game. We just didn’t get the (defensive) stops we needed.”
“We didn’t get any stops defensively,” agreed guard Ray Allen. “The times we did score, they came right back at us and we didn’t stop them.”
Another obvious factor in the outcome was Philadelphia’s 40-23 advantage in free throws. Though some Sonics tip-toed around questions about the officiating trio of Steve Javie, Bill Kennedy and Anthony Jordan – “No comment on that,” Allen said, shaking his head – others simply gave the Sixers credit for being more aggressive offensively.
“When they shoot that many more free throws than we do, that means that they were more aggressive attacking the bucket,” Daniels said. “We settled for a lot of outside shots. We didn’t have that balance tonight of sometimes shooting 3s and sometimes attacking the rim.”
Allen started slowly, but came back to lead Seattle with 32 points. Two Sonics who never found their shooting strokes, though, were forward Rashard Lewis and Vlade Radmanovic, two of Seattle’s best from the outside. Coming off a solid outing in Utah the night before, Lewis managed just 10 points in 41 minutes, and three of those points came on a meaningless shot in the closing seconds. He finished 4-for-15 from the field, missing repeatedly with uncontested looks from the 3-point stripe.
Radmanovic had one of his most forgettable games in the last few seasons. He was 1-for-8 from the field, 1-for-7 from the 3-point line, and fouled out in 18 minutes with just three points.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, got a huge game from guard Allen Iverson, who brought an NBA-best scoring average of 28.7 into the game and padded that mark with a 34-point effort. Iverson, who had scored 40 or more in three of his last four games (including back-to-back outings of 54 and 51 last week), started slowly, converting just one of eight attempts in the first quarter, but he followed with quarters of 10 points, eight points and then 13 points in the final period.
“He’s tough every night,” said Sonics guard Antonio Daniels. “When a guy has the ball in his hands that much with that much freedom and with the ability he has, with his quickness, he’s a very, very difficult matchup. When he gets it going and gets in a rhythm, he’s a very difficult guy to guard.”
“He’s a guy that feels the responsibility of stepping up in the second half,” said Sixers coach Jim O’Brien. “He’s our leader and he knows that we are going to call his number enough times that we are going to allow him to get hot. We’re not going to go away from him.”
Iverson is, O’Brien added, “an extremely confident basketball player.”
The Sonics are scheduled to leave this morning for Atlanta and the start of a nine-day, five-game East Coast road trip. Seattle faces the Hawks on Thursday afternoon (11 a.m. PST), then continues to Charlotte, Miami, Orlando and Washington.
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