At times this year, I've wavered in my belief. After all, the Sonics seemed incapable of winning a close home game for about a month and also ran off an eight-game road winning streak at one point. So maybe home-court advantage isn't all it's cracked up to be?

In January or February, maybe. Come late April, there's no place any team would rather be than in front of 20,000 screaming fans all passionately rooting for them, sleeping in their beds and eating familiar food. That's why the media members (like a certain Seattle columnist whose name rhymes with 'deal') who claim that the regular-season doesn't matter are so wrong. Yes, the Los Angeles Lakers may be able to play at something less than 100% over the grueling six-month schedule, but don't think they'd ever do it at the expense of claiming one of the top two records and maintaining the home-court through the Western Conference Finals.

However, as Jeff Van Gundy so eloquently described it during tonight's TNT broadcast of Portland and Los Angeles, six months of hard work can be undone in two and a half hours if the lower seed is able to sneak into the favorite's abode and steal one of the first two games.

And that's exactly what the Sonics were able to do on Monday night, showing a national audience that they were for real and not the joke NBC studio host Hannah Storm made them out to be during Saturday's broadcast.

A sluggish second half of the first quarter aside, the Sonics were excellent from buzzer to buzzer, and they saved their best for last, holding San Antonio without a field goal in the final 5:24 while Gary Payton did everything a superstar should do down the stretch, with ample help from a quickly recovering Rashard Lewis.

But we at SonicsCentral.com are not interested in reviewing the past so much as portending the future, so what's next for the Sonics?

Don't for a second make the mistake that just because the Sonics have a chance to finish this series with two straight wins in KeyArena that the series is over. After all, while the Seattle roster may not have much playoff experience, we Sonics fans certainly know full well what it's like for a favorite -- even a number two seed -- to split the first two games at home. That was the exact situation that the Karl Sonics faced in 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998, with the Sonics the number two seed the latter two times. (Oddly, the only time the Sonics swept at home under Karl in the first two games was 1994, when they memorably lost to the Denver Nuggets in five games.)

While after the 1994 and 1995 upsets Sonic fans were understandably a bit paranoid about the first round, I know we -- and certainly the team as well -- were a bit nervous about the prospect of having to win at least one game on the road, nobody was panicking and saying the team was finished. And with good reason -- in 1993, 1997, and 1998 the team overcame a 2-1 deficit on the road to advance.

In the same manner, the San Antonio Spurs and their 58 wins (26 on the road) aren't about to disappear like the Wicked Witch of the East just because some upstart bunch of youngsters has the audacity to beat them one time.

All that said, one situation the Sonics never faced during any of their playoff runs was the loss of a player as critical to the team as Spurs forward David Robinson. Though the Spurs have not yet made an official announcement, ESPN's David Aldridge is reporting that Robinson will be out for game three after receiving a series of epidural shots to his sore back.

All the time off that national television has required for this year's first-round series seemed to be an advantage for the Sonics because of the tenuous status of Lewis and Vladimir Radmanovic, but Robinson's back injury makes it a bonanza for San Antonio. Even if Robinson does not play in game three, he may be able to return in plenty of time to still have an impact on this series.

Although some Sonic fans have tried to minimize its importance, Robinson's injury is clearly a significant factor in this series in the Sonics' favor. Part of Robinson's value that I believe is overlooked lies in his ability to allow Duncan to rest while keeping a strong big man in the game. In game two, Duncan's brief rest at the start of the second quarter allowed the Sonics to put together a 7-0 run that eventually stretched to 10-0 as they got back into the game after facing a 14-point deficit after one quarter. While the Spurs can adequately replace Robinson with Malik Rose, who finished in fourth place in this week's Sixth Man award voting, they have nobody to replace Rose as a reserve big man. That means no rest for Duncan and serious trouble when the aggressive Rose gets in foul trouble, as he did early in game two's fourth quarter. Rose was second on the team with 208 regular season personal fouls, averaging nearly six per 48 minutes. Foul trouble should be little more surprising for Rose than for the Sonics' Vin Baker and Jerome James, forced to defend Duncan.

Additionally, while Rose is a capable replacement for Robinson both on the boards and offensively, he does not provide the same shot-blocking presence and, at a listed 6-7, is hard-pressed to defend the 6-11 Baker. Baker's success in the first two games of this series, combined with Robinson's absence, has forced Duncan to defend Baker in the post, leaving him unable to serve as a weakside shot-blocker.

Despite my great respect and admiration for David Robinson, it remains my belief that the biggest difference between game two and the Sonics' final regular-season visit to the Alamodome, when they lost 90-88, was the presence of Seattle's Rashard Lewis. When the Sonics needed a score to tie the game and Payton was cut off by the defense of Tony Parker, they were forced to turn to Shammond Williams and Peja Drobnjak. To say something about their ability, neither Williams nor Drobnjak got off the bench on Monday. In the fourth quarter, when Payton needed assistance, there was Lewis, scoring 11 of his 19 points during the final period. Perhaps most importantly, Lewis was not taking a feed from a doubled Payton to make an open three. Instead, he was creating offense for himself -- something players making the kind of money Lewis plans to get this summer need to do. And he did it all on a still-tender ankle. It was more than enough to make me willing to give Lewis whatever sum he demanded.

Lewis' performance was all the more important because Brent Barry was nearly invisible for the second straight game. I think Bruce Bowen is a fabulous defender, probably the best defensive swingman in the NBA. However, it is my opinion that Bowen's defense did not create Barry's slump, but rather exacerbated it. The numbers back this up; Barry struggled at the close of the regular season as well. It is truthfully a little odd to talk about the 'slump' of a player who is shooting 6 for 11 over the last two games, but watching the games makes it evident that Barry is not himself. His decision-making has been off, leading to several unforced or avoidable turnovers. While the Sonics would benefit immensely from Barry getting back to his regular season performance, I just don't see it happening. I am a pessimist at heart, however.