SEATTLE – Coming off back-to-back home defeats, the Seattle SuperSonics badly wanted to win on Sunday night. Any kind of victory, even a down-in-the-dirt tussle, was OK.
And that’s exactly what the Sonics got. On a night of NBA basketball that was more akin to street ball than ballet, Seattle outmuscled Utah 122-105 before a KeyArena gathering of 16,823. The outcome kept the Sonics from losing three straight games for the first time this season.
Seattle-Utah games are often feisty, foul-filled affairs, but this one was unusually so. The two teams combined for 70 personal fouls, which was a season-high for a Sonics game (the previous high was 61, also against Utah, in a Dec. 1 game), and eight technicals, meaning the referees whistles made nearly as much noise as the cheering spectators.
”Utah is a very physical team,” said Seattle coach Nate McMillan. ”And we had to be physical to play against them. But I think that’s the way you have to play (every night). We’ve played that way for most of the season, but (lately) we got away from that. But tonight I thought we were a little bit more aggressive.”
”Utah likes to grab and they like to hold,” said Sonics guard Antonio Daniels. ”That’s the type of team they are. That’s what they’re known for. But I thought we did a good job of playing through the contact and using it to our advantage by getting to the foul line and making things happen.”
Seattle trailed briefly in the game’s early moments, but then used a 10-2 scoring burst to go on top to stay. Another 10-2 run at the end of the first period pushed the margin to 33-23, and the Sonics never let Utah get closer than four points the rest of the way. The lead, in fact, stayed in double digits for much of the final three periods.
”We came out and played very hard from the get-go,” Daniels said. ”I think a lot of that has to do with losing two games in a row. … Tonight we said, ‘No matter what happens, we can’t lose three in a row. We haven’t done it all year and we’re not going to start tonight.’ So guys came out very focused.”
The Sonics were led by forward Rashard Lewis, who had one of his best games of the season. Lewis, who has been slowed by knee tendinitis in recent outings, delivered 36 points, which was one below his season high in a Dec. 14 game against the LA Lakers. He was 12-for-17 from the field and a remarkable 7-for-8 from the 3-point stripe.
It was, McMillan praised, ”an All-Star-like night.”
Lewis was backed by guard Antonio Daniels, who scored 24 points off the bench, and guard Ray Allen, who broke a string of 11 straight games shooting under .500 from the field by going 6-for-10 as part of his 20 points. Allen’s string was actually in question into the closing moments, but he dropped in two long jumpers in the late going.
Aside from the victory, which was the 28th in 39 games for the Northwest Division-leading Sonics, the story of the game was the officiating. The trio of Mark Wunderlich, Dan Crawford and Tony Brown was, shall we say, less than dazzling, so some of the griping – which came from both teams – was clearly warranted. The surprise was that no one was ejected.
Then there was Seattle forward Danny Fortson, Seattle’s leader in technicals this season. Most have no doubt been deserved, but a ”T” from Wunderlich late in the third period was not. Fortson was called for a foul under the basket and rather calmly bounced the ball off the basket support – something players routinely do without penalty. Alas, not this night.
”Nothing surprises me any more,” Fortson said with a wry smile. ”And it shouldn’t surprise you guys (in the media) either.”
Sunday’s win allows Seattle to take a 3-0 lead in the four-game series with Utah this season. It is the first time the Sonics have won the season series between the teams since 1995-96 when it was 3-1, though there have been several splits since then. Seattle can sweep the series for the first time since 1982-83 with a win Wednesday in Salt Lake City.
The Sonics will practice in Seattle this morning, then take an afternoon flight to Los Angeles for a Tuesday night game with the Lakers. The trip continues the next night in Utah (Seattle’s 41st game, the season’s halfway mark) and wraps up Friday at Golden State.
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