SEATTLE – Ordinarily, an NBA home opener is a festive affair, replete with pomp, excitement and, above all else, optimism.
It may not be all that when the Seattle SuperSonics open their 2004-05 home season at KeyArena tonight with a 7:30 game against the Atlanta Hawks.
Not on the heels of Wednesday night’s 30-point drubbing by the Los Angeles Clippers in Seattle’s first regular-season game. That humiliating loss was the second-largest margin of defeat in an opener in Sonics history and the biggest winning spread ever in a first game for the Clippers, historically one of the league’s doormats.
If there was a silver lining to that fiasco, it wasn’t evident to anyone at Seattle’s midday practice Thursday. The team went through a sober workout, and afterward the coaches and players faced a barrage of questions about the team’s utter and inexplicable first-game demise.
“We have to shrug it off,” said guard Antonio Daniels. “In this league, if you get a good win, you move on. You still have to play the next game. And in this league, if you lose the way we did (Wednesday) night, you still have to play the next game. Maybe that’s the good part about this. We get a chance to come out (tonight) and redeem ourselves.”
Against Atlanta, he went on, “we have to come out and respond appropriately. We can’t come out in front of our home fans and play the way we did (in Los Angeles). Not just execution-wise, but effort-wise. We need to come out and show ourselves, our fans and our organization that we’re here and that we mean business.”
No one could account for the Sonics being so lethargic and seemingly indifferent in their opener. Neither Daniels (“If you can’t get excited about the season opener, why play?” he asked) nor any of the other coaches or players could explain how Seattle could drop into a double-digit hole in the game’s early minutes and stay there the rest of the night.
To Sonics head coach Nate McMillan, it was simply “a butt-whipping. … We couldn’t get anything going offensively and we couldn’t stop them defensively. We got kicked.”
The performance was so bad that McMillan canceled the usual film session the day after a game. He watched the tape twice – once on the flight home and again on Thursday morning – but the players simply bypassed the film room for the practice court.
“I didn’t see anything good in that game,” McMillan said. “I thought I would, but I didn’t see anything that could help us.”
Thursday’s practice lasted 21/2 hours, and the team spent much of the time working on its offense. McMillan says his players need to recognize that opponents will be using defensive schemes designed to take away both guard Ray Allen and forward Rashard Lewis, Seattle’s top two scorers. When that happens, he said, “the other three players need to know where to be, what to do and how to attack a defense that’s focused on stopping those two guys.”
Beyond that, he added, the team simply needs to play with more effort and purpose.
“That game is over,” McMillan said, “and now we want to come out (tonight) and get a win. We have to come out with more intensity, better execution, and we have to work harder than we did in (Wednesday’s) game. But with the motivation of playing in the home opener, and because we just got kicked, I expect these guys to be ready.”
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