Seattle this season has been a team that has continually found ways to triumph over adversity. Several times this year the Sonics have beaten serious playoff contenders by raising the level of their game despite being over matched. Seattle has been a monster while playing away from Key Arena currently enjoying an eight game winning streak on the road. And even without two of the team's projected starting big men in the line up, Seattle has been playing the best basketball of their season in a conference ruled by the some of the biggest and most physical teams in the league. The team has somehow found a way to flourish in the role of underdog in almost every facet of their game this year, at some point or another.

And so we come to March, picked by many at the beginning of the season as Seattle’s softest month in the schedule, but that might not necessarily be a good thing for McMillan’s Sonics. They are not going to be underdogs anymore. Things may look to be going the Sonics' way right now but one of the biggest obstacles on the road to success has to be success itself. With everything going the Sonics way it will be difficult for the team maintain their level of intensity and desire enough to take advantage of the lull in their schedule the way they should.

The youth movement the Sonics have undergone has brought with it a great deal of instability; often the team has been prone to mental errors and needless mistakes. This has been compounded by the fact that coach McMillan is still learning to swim as a head coach plunged into the NBA Ocean. These mental lapses have cost the Sonics this season in games they should have been able to capitalize on, such as multiple losses to the Heat and Nuggets, as well as a bitter home loss to the Bulls. These are scenarios Seattle will have to closely guard against in the coming month.

After an impressive road win in Cleveland earlier this week Gary Payton spoke to the press about the team's current hot streak, saying the team was having a good time and they were just trying to have fun. Almost as if he could read the concerns in my mind Gary added, “We need to keep our spirits up, and when we get on the floor, it’ll be serious”.

Obviously over the years Payton has shown that he is capable of turning his competitive drive on and off like a light switch, of course he will be able to get serious as soon as he hits the floor, but can the rest of the Sonics?

Desmond Mason, Vladimir Radmanovic, Earl Watson, and even most recently during Baker’s absence Jerome James, have all been contributors to the Sonics success, but all of these men are young and very capable of letting winning now make them complacent. In the NBA complacency equates to mediocrity, and this team is capable of so much more.

However, if the Sonics are able to keep their wits about them, March can be a very productive stretch for the team. There are no elongated trips away from Key Arena, (which maybe is a bad thing), and despite having four occasions where playing back to back nights, three of those four second night games are against sub .500 opposition.

If anyone should be able to keep a fire under the Sonics while taking on this final leg of the schedule it is Nate McMillan, a player known for his toughness and competitive spirit. Just as if anything should be able to keep that fire ablaze it should be a race for the playoffs, perhaps the Sonics would be better served by the Clippers putting together a hot streak of there own. Whatever motivation it takes, this is a team that desperately needs to maintain its focus, the Sonics are not good enough to win when they do not care about winning. And with just over a month and a half left in the schedule, winning now is more important than ever.

As fans, we have a tendency to look forward towards what we want to happen instead of what is happening now. Even before the All-Star break people (myself very much included) were looking ahead and debating who we would like the team to face in the playoffs. It is all well and good for us arm chair general managers to be able to day dream about who we will have to face in the post season, but if this mentality seeps into the minds of players the results could be disastrous.

It is a cliché that we hear from sports stars all the time, we will take it one game at a time; the words have been repeated so much they have lost meaning to most fans. But if the Sonics hope to reach the post season, this strategy is exactly what they need. If they can ignore the temptation to take a light March schedule lightly, Seattle’s chances of returning to the playoffs keep looking brighter and brighter.

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