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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sonics Reject Rockets In Homestretch

Bart Wright Tacoma News Tribune

It had to change sometime, and the time finally came for the Seattle SuperSonics on Tuesday night in the Summit.

The last time the Sonics won a road game against a Western Conference team with a winning record was Nov. 26. It was same place, different team Tuesday, when the Sonics used a clutch 20-point effort off the bench from Sarunas Marciulionis and an aggressive defense to stop the restructured Houston Rockets, 104-102, before a crowd of 16,611.

The Rockets had the ball at the end with a chance to tie or win the game, but guard Vernon Maxwell drove to the basket and found Shawn Kemp in his way. Kemp got up with Maxwell and forced him to change his shot just enough that it rolled away and left Houston two points short. It also left the Rockets down 3-0 to the Sonics in the season series.

“He saved us,” Karl said of Marciulionis, who sat out the entire game a night earlier in San Antonio. “It looked like we didn’t have much of an answer offensively in the first part of the game; we could have easily got caught in a sluggish game, but Rooney gave us a big lift.”

The Sonics’ victory also took the pressure off their declining road record against teams with better than .500 records. They had been 2-12 in those situations before Tuesday.

“It was time for us to put some fight in our game,” said Kemp.

Statistically, the Sonics won it at the foul line, where they made 31 of 39 shots (Kemp was 11 for 12) while the Rockets only had 16 attempts and made 13. Seattle was able to rotate its defense quickly enough in its second game in two nights to keep Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon struggling.

Each time Olajuwon got the ball, one Sonic would pressure him from behind. And Seattle played the passing lanes so well that at least one other defender always seemed to be in Olajuwon’s face when the ball arrived. He finished with 21 points and eight rebounds. Clyde Drexler, the team’s newest acquisition, led Houston with 22 points.

The Sonics made it competitive in the second quarter after falling behind 32-15 late in the first. Seattle went a full 5:12 without a field goal after Gary Payton’s layup tied the game at 11 with 6:22 left in the first quarter. The next field goal was a dunk by Kendall Gill at 1:10 that made it 30-15.

Seattle outscored Houston 26-7 in the first 10 minutes of the second quarter to get the lead back at 44-43 on a Payton dunk.

The teams traded the lead until Sam Perkins’ basket at 3:02 made it 97-96 for Seattle. He followed that with two free throws 30 seconds later for a three-point lead, and a big follow dunk by Kemp put Houston on the ropes.