PHOENIX – Have you ever seen two blind, toothless pigs trying to kill each other in a mud bog?
That’s what the Seattle SuperSonics’ game with the Phoenix Suns resembled Tuesday night.
Unfortunately for the Sonics, they got all four legs stuck and suffocated with a ball of dirt in their mouth before the wallowing Suns could annihilate themselves first.
Seattle’s destruction came in the form of a 92-91 overtime loss, the result of a mind-numbingly poor defensive play that capped an evening of astonishing ineptitude by both teams.
Where to start with the drudgery?
Holding a 91-90 lead with 6.8 seconds left, the Sonics allowed the Suns to throw an alley-oop inbounds pass from halfcourt that Shawn Marion dunked for the game-winning basket, snapping Phoenix’s six-game losing streak and giving new coach Mike D’Antoni his first win in four attempts.
We repeat: AN INBOUNDS PASS FROM HALF COURT THAT TURNED INTO AN UNCONTESTED ALLEY-OOP DUNK.
On the play, the teams were coming out of a timeout. Calvin Booth and Luke Ridnour initially were on the court, but at the last second Vladimir Radmanovic and Ansu Sesay ran on.
Sonics coach Nate McMillan said the substitution was because the Sonics did not want Booth on the floor to get caught in a pick-and-roll in which he was guarding Marbury.
The decision was fatal.
Suns forward Shawn Marion faked setting a pick to free up Stephon Marbury, then rolled to the basket. Just as he cut, associate head coach Dwane Casey screamed, “Watch the back door.”
It was too late. Radmanovic, guarding Marion, lost sight of him and Marion took the pass from Anfernee Hardaway and crammed the basket home.
“You body your man, you body your man,” Antonio Daniels said. “Shawn Marion walked up the lane and went back door. We have to be a better defensive team.”
“You always keep a body between man and basket,” Sonics coach Nate McMillan said.
The thing that has Radmanovic’s teammates so frustrated with him is that this is not the first time he has been victimized by lob dunks. In New Jersey, Kenyon Martin got him twice before McMillan removed him from the game. A few games ago, in a situation not as important, he gave up another dunk off an inbounds pass.
“I guess everybody in the arena saw better than I what happened on that play,” Radmanovic said. “I have to see exactly what happened. But I lose the guy, not enough pressure on the ball out of bounds, the guy threw the ball, dunk.”
Radmanovic said coming in so late out of the timeout did not cause confusion. He said he thought Marbury was going to get the ball and take a shot at the buzzer, the reason he did not expect Marion to go to the basket.
“We just have to communicate better on defense, especially when the game is on the line,” Radmanovic said.
The irony of Marion making the dunk is that he was awful all night. He had missed 15-of-19 shots before that dunk, including the previous shot that could have put the Suns ahead.
But as much as the Sonics will focus on that play, it was way, way more than that that dropped their record to 11-11.
They also could look at their season-high 27 turnovers, including an eight-minute stretch in the second quarter when they turned over the ball eight times and allowed Phoenix (9-16) to erase all of Seattle’s 16-point lead.
Everybody was susceptible. Calvin Booth and Jerome James each had four turnovers. Rashard Lewis, Radmanovic, Daniels, Ronald Murray and Luke Ridnour each had three.
“With 27 turnovers, I don’t even know how we stayed in this game,” McMillan said.
They could point to their 38.8 percent shooting, which just barely outdid the Suns’ 38.6 percent.
They could point to scoring only two points in overtime, missing 9-of-10 shots, committing three tunovers.
Or, they could point to poor execution, and that came courtesy of Lewis, whose game-high 27 points and season-high-tying 13 rebounds was a mere afterthought given his gaffes in the final 10 seconds.
After Marion had missed his shot with eight seconds left, the Suns, trailing 91-90, fouled Lewis, who could have lengthened the lead and changed the dynamics of the game.
His first free throw caromed hard off the front of the rim. After a timeout, his second foul shot rolled out, setting up Marion’s dunk.
Still, there were 5.6 seconds left with Phoenix holding a 92-91 lead.
Typical of the game, Seattle’s first inbounds pass was tipped away, putting the clock at 3.9 seconds.
Lewis took the pass, tried to get free and dribbled the ball off his leg and out of bounds, a final insult.
After the game, Lewis declined to speak.
Then again, it’s tough to talk with a mouth full of muck.
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