By Rich Myhre
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – The night before, the Seattle SuperSonics kicked away what should have been an easy victory over the Denver Nuggets.
On Saturday night, the Sonics got some payback. They kicked the Nuggets.
In a game they led from start to finish, the Sonics helped purge the shame of a galling Friday night loss in Denver by routing the Nuggets 104-77 at KeyArena. In particular, Seattle trounced the visitors in the third quarter, turning a seven-point halftime margin into a 27-point spread through three periods.
The lead never dropped below 22 points in the final quarter and reached a high of 33 points in the closing minutes. When it was over, the numbers all favored Seattle. The Sonics shot a crisp 52.2 percent from the field (47-for-90), held Denver to just 35.5 percent (27-for-76), and managed a whopping 52-32 rebound margin that was a Sonics season high.
” (Seattle) came to play,” said Denver coach Mike Evans. “We knew they were going to try to beat us up and be real physical with us, and they were. They really manhandled us. … Nobody wants to get their tails handed to them like that, but it happens.”
“They came out with a sense of urgency,” added Nuggets guard Avery Johnson, the onetime Sonic. “They had something to prove.”
Indeed, this was a remarkable turnabout against the team that had spanked the visiting Sonics 96-90 the night before. It was also Seattle’s first win against the Nuggets, one of the NBA’s cellar dwellers, in three tries this season. After the resignation of president and head coach Dan Issel on Dec. 26, and with Denver star Nick Van Exel begging for a trade, the reeling Nuggets have won just six of their last 28 games.
That one of those wins came Friday night in the Mile High City was a grave embarrassment to the Sonics.
“We all feel sick about that loss,” said Seattle coach Nate McMillan. “We know we gave it away. But there’s no way we can get that game back now. We can pound on ourselves as much as we want, but it was important that we came back and got this one.
“The one thing I told our guys (before the game) was, ‘I want pride from you guys, but I don’t want individual play. It has to be a unit playing together with a high level of intensity and aggressiveness.’ And I thought we did that on both ends of the floor.”
Though Gary Payton led the way for Seattle with 25 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds in 38 minutes, plenty of other Sonics chipped in. Rashard Lewis contributed 17 points and seven rebounds, Vin Baker had 15 points and nine rebounds, and Art Long added 12 points and a team- high 11 rebounds.
It was backup guard Desmond Mason, though, who provided the game’s best highlights. Midway through the second period, Mason flipped an in-bounds pass to Brent Barry in the corner, then curled to the basket. Barry lofted a return pass to the basket that Mason caught head-high to the rim and dunked back over his head, eliciting many cheers.
There was another dazzling Mason moment late in the third quarter as he soared to the rim to block a reverse dunk attempt by Denver’s Chris Andersen, drawing more cheers.
The Nuggets were led by the 28 points of Van Exel, a longtime Payton antagonist who brought a 22.7 per-game scoring average into the game. Van Exel, who exceeded that mark in the first half with 24 points, seemed well on his way to another big night in Seattle – he had 38 points in a 103-93 win at KeyArena on Nov. 17. But in the second half he had just five attempts, converting two, mostly against the guard of Payton.
“When he gets on a roll, you just have to pressure up on him and hope he misses shots,” Payton said. “He’s a great shooter. I just played hard and made him work to get the ball. Great players like him, you always have to hope you can get him to pass the ball and deny him the ball and make other people do things with the ball.”
The game was one of just two for the Sonics at KeyArena over a three-week span of mid-January. The team is scheduled to fly to Philadelphia this morning for a Monday afternoon game (Martin Luther King Day) against the 76ers. The road trip continues next week with stops in Charlotte, Milwaukee and Indiana.
“Now we can go out on the road and try to gain some ground there,” McMillan said.
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