Sonics at less than their best, but their still good enough to beat the Wizards

SEATTLE – The Seattle SuperSonics needed a win in the worst way Sunday night.

Which is pretty much the way they played, even in victory.

Despite a near-disastrous nine-minute stretch of the third and fourth quarters when an 18-point lead dissolved into a five-point deficit, the Sonics rallied late to eke out an 88-85 victory over the Washington Wizards. Only some sharp perimeter shooting by forward Vlade Radmanovic, who finished with a game-high 25 points, kept Seattle from kicking away another second-half lead and losing a fourth straight game at KeyArena.

“They had that scared look on their faces like they were going to lose again,” Washington forward Kwame Brown said.

“When they took the lead by five points, we … were thinking, ‘Damn, it’s about to happen to us again,’” Sonics forward Rashard Lewis said. “But there were still about four minutes left in the game and that’s a lot of time.”

Seattle’s Brent Barry started the comeback with a long 3-pointer and then Radmanovic took over, scoring on three straight Sonics possessions. He first dropped in a 3-point field goal from left of the key, then a 15-footer from the left baseline, and lastly another 3-pointer from beyond the top of the key. The barrage pushed Seattle to an 84-80 edge with just under two minutes to play and the Wizards never led again, though a Jared Jeffries 3-pointer with eight seconds left brought the visitors within one point, 86-85.

Lewis made the lead three again with a pair of free throws, and then a potential game-tying 3-pointer by Washington’s Juan Dixon bounced off the rim in the final seconds, preserving Seattle’s win.

Still, no one in the Sonics locker room was celebrating with giddy delight.

“We got a break tonight,” Seattle coach Nate McMillan said. “I think teams need breaks and we got a break. … Of course you want the win. The win is everything. But it’s still hard to see that happen again.”

The Sonics, he went on, are struggling in almost every area of the game. Seattle is getting out-rebounded routinely, has porous interior defense and is sputtering offensively, particularly when the game is on the line.

“You can say we’re young, and we know that, but some of the plays we’re making are just not smart plays,” McMillan said. “We made some plays tonight, but we need to make more and we need to make them at the right time.

“I have to continue to try to teach … but we’re going to have to grow up,” he added. “We have to be able to play in situations like this. These are the best players in the world and this game is not easy. This game is for men, and you have to be able to roll up your sleeves, get boards, stop people, run your plays, and not allow pressure to bother you.”

That Washington was even in the game by the fourth quarter was a miracle of sorts. As sluggish as the Sonics were in the first half – they scored just 36 points and shot a mere 33.3 percent (15-of-45) from the field – the visitors were even more pitiful. The Wizards scored just 12 points in each of the first two periods for a first-half total that set a franchise record for futility.

Washington made just 10 of 41 field-goal attempts before halftime (24.4 percent), and in a span of nearly 10 1/2minutes of the late first and early second quarters scored just two points.

“We just weren’t a good team in the first half,” acknowledged Wizards coach Eddie Jordan.

Then again, neither were the Sonics, though they did lead 36-24 at the break. Seattle’s best stretch of the game was early in the third quarter as the margin reached 18 points, but from there it was hang-on time and the Sonics did – but just barely.

Still, there was some hope that a win, even an imperfect one, just might tip the team’s fortunes the other way.

“We’ve been hanging our heads a little because we’ve been losing games at home,” said Lewis, who contributed 24 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals. “I think this game will help build our confidence up a little and help us get back to playing Seattle basketball. Everybody’s been kind of dragging and our practices haven’t been the way we’ve wanted because everybody’s kind of upset with each other and upset with us losing and upset with us not playing together as a team.

“I’m hoping this win will change everything,” he said, “and get us back on the side of having fun.”