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Mavs' Message Delivered from Dallas
Sonics Routed, Rocked in Worst Loss Since December
By SonicsKevin
Brent Barry, left, struggled through one of his worst shooting nights of the season, making just one of eight shots.
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Since his Seattle Supersonics clinched a playoff berth this Monday with a win over the Los Angeles
Clippers this Monday, coach Nate McMillan has been telling reporters that the team he would least like to
face in the first round of the playoffs is the Dallas Mavericks. Saturday night, his team went out there and
proved it to themselves, the Mavericks, and a disgusted sellout crowd at KeyArena in a 116-99 loss that, at
the risk of sounding cliched, was not nearly as close as the score indicated.
Although the Sonics had lost their last two contests with the Mavericks, including a double-digit decision in Dallas early in March, the field seemed to be levelled by the absence of star Maverick forward Dirk Nowitzki. The first-time All-Star turned an ankle earlier in the week against Utah, and without him, the Mavs had been embarrassed at home in overtime by the Houston Rockets on Thursday to fall out of first place in the Midwest division. In the early going, the Sonics were able to run-and-gun with a still-potent Dallas lineup, overcoming poor shooting with an astounding eight first-quarter offensive rebounds as the Mavs played small. Rookie Vladimir Radmanovic, in just his third game back from a sprained toe, also demonstrated nice touch from the perimeter in nailing two three-pointers in the first five minutes. Nevertheless, six unanswered points by the Mavericks gave them the lead after one quarter by a 26-25 count. The show was just beginning. With both teams putting their benches into the fray, a deeper Dallas squad pulled away. Led by reserve guards Nick Van Exel, who has historically given the Sonics fits, and Greg Buckner, the Mavs pulled out a 12-2 run early into the second quarter which established a 15-point lead. Not done yet, Dallas struck quickly for eight consecutive points just before halftime. Seattle's Desmond Mason was able to quell the run with a three before the buzzer, but the Sonics still took a deficit of 16 to the half. The third quarter brought more of the same, with the destruction being largely wrought by Michael Finley. Overall, Finley had 29 points on 11 of 17 shooting, most of his production in the third, where his 17 points alone were nearly enough to keep the Sonics at bay. Finley was the catalyst behind an 18-2 Dallas sprint -- because run is an inadequate word to describe what happened -- scoring 14 of his team's 16 points in one span. When the fog had lifted and Seattle put together consecutive scores at the 3:25 mark, the team already was finished, trailing by an unimaginable 30 points as the home crowd began to rain some boobirds upon its team. A playoff preview indeed. With the rout officially on, a spirited group of Sonic reserves, led by the nine points and six assists of Shammond Williams, were able to make the final margin at least a somewhat respectable 17 points, still the team's worst loss since a 20-point defeat at the Staples Center against the Los Angeles Clippers that is now looked back upon as the team's darkest hour, coming just before a six-game winning streak that turned around the season. Quick guards catalyzed the Sonics' demise, with Steve Nash (10 points, nine assists in 22 minutes), Finley, Van Exel (22 points on 9 of 12 shooting), and Buckner (17 points on 7 of 10 shooting) all waltzing into the lane and creating either for themselves or easy dump-offs to Edjuardo Najera (14 points, 11 boards) and Raef LaFrentz (14 poins, seven boards). Because of this and despite the absence of Nowitzki, the Maverick attack was as powerful as ever in the first three quarters, rolling up 96 points in that span. On the other end, the Sonics' poor shooting over the first three quarters (the league's best shooting team managed just 41% from the field even including the fourth quarter) belied Dallas' reputation as a poor defensive team. Seattle's starters, 'led' by Brent Barry's 1 for 8, made just 19 of 55 attempts (35%).
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