SEATTLE – Fans who came to KeyArena hoping for another Seattle SuperSonics blowout on Friday night might have gone away unhappy.
Those willing to settle for a thrilling, down-to-the-wire victory surely went away delighted.
In a clash between two surprising 4-1 ballclubs, the Sonics scored five straight points in the last minute and took advantage of a missed layin try by Toronto superstar Vince Carter with a second to play to prevail 88-87 before a raucous crowd of 15,702.
It was Seattle’s fifth consecutive win after a season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Clippers and leaves the Sonics alone atop the new Northwest Division.
“It’s nice to play these types of games and come out with a W,” said Sonics coach Nate McMillan. “Not only for the team, but for the fans.
“We’re playing good basketball,” he added. “We’re scrapping for 48 minutes. I didn’t see any quit in these guys tonight, and we found a way to win a tough game against a tough team.”
Toronto seemingly had the game in hand when backup center Matt Bonner scored with an 18-foot jumper at 1:16 of the fourth quarter. That field goal gave the Raptors an 87-83 lead, leaving a four-game Sonics winning streak in obvious peril.
Instead, Rashard Lewis took a pass from Antonio Daniels on the left wing and swished a 3-pointer with just over a minute to play, cutting the deficit to one. Then, after Toronto missed two tries from the field – the second a Carter 3-point air ball that went sailing out of bounds with 20 seconds to go – the Sonics used a timeout to set up a go-ahead attempt.
It was a play designed for Lewis, but Daniels saw a lane and penetrated the middle. His floating runner from 10 feet bounced lightly off the rim, touched the backboard and fell through the net with seven seconds on the clock, putting the Sonics in front by one and drawing a deafening roar from the crowd.
As soon as the ball went up, Daniels said, “I knew it was in. I didn’t know it was going to bounce (around), but I knew it was good.”
“Hearing the crowd cheer after he made the basket was pretty cool, too,” added guard Luke Ridnour.
Toronto took a timeout and ended up putting the ball in Carter’s hands. Guarded by Sonics forward Reggie Evans on a switch, Carter curled to the basket from the left side and tried a reverse layin. The ball touched the underside of the rim and bounced away as the horn sounded, preserving Seattle’s win.
“We forced (Carter) into a tough shot,” Daniels said. “If he hits that shot, more power to him. But he didn’t and then we could celebrate.”
The win came despite an astonishing call – heck, a gosh-awful call – by referee Tony Brothers that cost Seattle leading scorer Ray Allen for the game’s final 5:20. Allen, playing with five fouls, was trying to drive the left baseline and bumped with Toronto’s Morris Peterson, who was moving beside him. Peterson flopped and Brothers gave him the call as boos noisy rightly filled the arena.
“I think (Brothers’) angle was bad because he was behind me,” Allen said. “All Mo Pete did was slide and the second my body touched his he just dropped. I don’t even think I really touched him. He threw his body down and that’s all the referee saw.”
Had the Sonics lost, he added, “that would have been a league call (i.e., a call to the league office).
It would have been bothering me all season long, or at least until I saw (Brothers) again. But that’s the NBA.”
Winning without Allen “is what being a team is all about,” Daniels said. “We win collectively and we lose collectively, and it feels great to get a win like this tonight.”
“It was a gut-check when he went out,” Ridnour said. “We still had to get it done. We had to keep fighting, get the (defensive) stops we needed and hit some big shots. We needed to be tested in that way and we responded in a positive way.”
Despite missing the game’s final minutes, Allen finished with 29 points to go with seven assists, four rebounds and two steals. Another big contributor was Evans, who gathered 16 rebounds – one off his career high – and added a season-best 13 points. Daniels chipped in 16 points and Vlade Radmanovic, despite scoring just five points, totaled 11 rebounds.
For the fifth consecutive game – all of them victories – the Sonics won the rebound battle, gathering 46 to Toronto’s 35.
The Raptors were led by 19 points and nine rebounds from forward Chris Bosh, a player the Sonics considered trading up to draft in the summer of 2003 (the Raptors got him at No. 4). Carter had 15 points, but shot just 5-for-17 from the field.
Next up for the Sonics is a Sunday night meeting with the Memphis Grizzlies at KeyArena. Seattle will head off the next morning on a 10-day road trip with stops in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Toronto, Boston, Minnesota and Memphis.
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