Bring On The Rockets Fiery Suns Burn Out, Give Sonics 3-2 Series Win

The Seattle SuperSonics return triumphantly to Houston today, a mere three weeks after they left there seemingly a shattered and fractious unit.

Twenty-one days ago, the Rockets routed the Sonics by 40. Seattle is back for a Western Conference semifinal series that starts Monday, having answered huge questions mentally and physically by finally defeating the Phoenix Suns in a five-game first-round series.

The Suns, who had won two of the first three games to raise anew all the old questions about the Sonics, finally burned out in the fourth quarter Saturday, allowing Seattle to roll to a 116-92 victory in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the first round in front of 17,072 at KeyArena.

“Being down 2-1 in the series and people counting you out, all the adversity we had to go through in this series brought us together as a group,” said Sonics guard Hersey Hawkins. “The confidence that everyone feels out there now, we are just playing and having fun and enjoying the game - that’s what we’ve gotten back to.”

Saturday’s final score belies the tension that was felt a mere 22 seconds into the fourth quarter when Phoenix’s Wesley Person hit a 3-pointer that cut a seemingly insurmountable 22-point Seattle halftime lead to five.

The crowd was murmuring and the critics snickering, figuring blowing a game like this would be even worse than the previous first-round losses that have made the Sonics the NBA’s favorite whipping post.

But then the usually defensive-minded David Wingate hit a 3-pointer. After Person missed a 3-pointer, Detlef Schrempf hit one. Then after another Suns’ miss, Gary Payton hit Wingate for a layup off an in-bounds pass, Wingate alertly sneaking behind Kevin Johnson on the play.

The lead was 13, and suddenly the Sonics were safely headed to the second round, less than 48 hours after they had seemed dead in Phoenix down 2-1, then had to rally to win a game in overtime they had seemingly won in regulation.

“I think we won five games in this series,” said SuperSonics coach George Karl. “We won the last two games twice.”

If they had lost either one of them once, the Sonics might be thinking about rebuilding today. Instead, they are talking confidently about beating a Rockets’ team the Sonics have never lost a playoff series to in five previous meetings.

“Mentally we are better for this series,” Karl said. “Mentally we are tougher and stronger now, and that has probably been our weakest area this year. But I think you saw a team that believes, that hung together. They (the Sonics) had their opportunities to break apart and they didn’t.”

They didn’t because the team’s two superstars - Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp - played at a superstar level. Payton merely did in this series what he had done all year, averaging 25.4 points and nine assists, and scoring 19 points and 10 assists Saturday despite struggling with his shot.

Kemp was the big question mark coming in thanks to his second-half slump and bizarre episodes of lateness and absenteeism, which led to all those denials in Houston. But after that, Kemp promised to step up his play in the playoffs, and he delivered, averaging 22.2 points and 14.4 rebounds during the series, including 21 points and 11 rebounds in Game 5.

“Shawn and Gary are our engines,” Karl said. “They are the guys who make it happen for us. The other guys fit around Shawn and Gary, and if one of those guys isn’t in tune we are searching a little bit.”

But some of those other guys also stepped up Saturday - Schrempf had 12 points in the first quarter, then Sam Perkins came off the bench for eight in the second quarter and 13 in the first half as the Sonics led 63-41 at halftime.

Phoenix started a four-guard offense, replacing Wayman Tisdale with Wesley Person, but Person got off to an erratic start, and the Suns never could stop the Sonics as Seattle hit 22 of 41 shots (53.7 percent) in the first half.

But as they always did in this series, Phoenix rallied, hitting 6 of 10 3-pointers in the third quarter to cut the lead to eight. Then Person’s 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter made it 81-76 with 11:38 left.

SuperSonics 116, Suns 92

FG FT Reb PHOENIX Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Chapman 37 6-13 1-2 1-2 5 4 16 Person 43 10-19 1-2 1-8 1 1 26 Williams 23 1-2 1-2 4-7 1 2 3 Johnson 44 8-27 3-3 1-2 4 3 20 Kidd 44 7-12 0-0 0-8 7 3 17 Ceballos 19 0-2 0-0 2-3 0 4 0 Bryant 7 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 2 2 Manning 17 4-8 0-0 0-4 1 4 8 Nash 2 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Meyer 2 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0 Brown 2 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 Totals 240 37-87 6-9 9-35 19 24 92

Percentages: FG .425, FT .667.

3-Point Goals: 12-31, .387 (Person 5-10, Kidd 3-5, Chapman 3-7, Johnson 1-5, Manning 0-1, Nash 0-1, Ceballos 0-2). Team Rebounds: 9.

Blocked shots: 3 (Person, Williams, Kidd).

Turnovers: 14 (Chapman 3, Person 3, Kidd 3, Williams, Johnson, Ceballos, Bryant, Manning).

Steals: 5 (Johnson 4, Person).

Technical fouls: None.

Illegal defense: None.

FG FT Reb SEATTLE Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Kemp 39 6-12 9-11 3-11 2 4 21 Schrempf 42 9-14 2-2 1-7 9 2 24 Cummings 19 2-3 2-2 1-3 1 2 6 Hawkins 39 4-9 1-1 1-3 5 4 9 Payton 46 7-26 4-4 2-4 10 1 19 Perkins 26 6-9 2-3 2-5 0 2 15 Wingate 21 6-7 4-6 3-10 2 2 19 Graham 2 0-1 1-2 0-0 0 0 1 McIlvaine 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 Snow 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Stewart 2 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 2 Totals 240 41-82 25-31 13-43 29 18 116

Percentages: FG .500, FT .806.

3-Point Goals: 9-25, .360 (Schrempf 4-6, Wingate 3-3, Perkins 1-2, Payton 1-9, Kemp 0-1, Hawkins 0-4).

Team Rebounds: 13.

Blocked shots: 1 (Kemp).

Turnovers: 11 (Kemp 3, Hawkins 3, Cummings 2, Schrempf, Payton, Perkins).

Steals: 8 (Schrempf 2, Cummings 2, Kemp, Hawkins, Payton, Perkins).

Technical fouls: None.

Illegal defense: None.

Phoenix 23 18 32 19 - 92 Seattle 33 30 18 35 - 116 A-17,072 (17,072). T-2:19.