Sonics Try To Tie It Up Seattle Must Win At Home Tonight Or Its Season Will Turn Into History
Maybe it was all part of some weird plan when the Seattle SuperSonics blew the homecourt advantage after the first round of the playoffs with unlikely losses to the likes of Sacramento, Dallas and New Jersey during the regular season.
As was evident during its stirring victory at Houston on Tuesday night in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals - a victory that kept the Sonics’ season alive - Seattle has often played better on the road than at home during the playoffs.
Game 6 of the series, tonight at 6 at KeyArena, will require the Sonics to recolor their homecourt blues if they are to force a winner-take-all Game 7 Saturday in Houston.
Seattle is attempting to become only the sixth team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-7 series, and only the third to do it by winning Games 5 and 7 on the road.
“We’ve got something to prove to ourselves and our fans that we can win at home,” said Sonics forward Shawn Kemp.
Maybe the 17,072 at KeyArena tonight should boo the Sonics and cheer The Chuckster and get all excited when “The Rocket’s Red Glare” part of the national anthem is sung to make the Sonics feel like they are still at The Summit.
In this series, Seattle has a 2-1 record in Houston, 0-2 at home. For the 1997 playoffs they are 3-2 on the road and 2-3 at home.
Only once in their history have the Sonics finished a playoff run with a losing home record, and that was 1983 when Seattle lost its only home game of a two-game mini-series loss to Portland. The Sonics have never lost more than two consecutive home games during the playoffs (1980, 1987 and 1989, all to the Lakers).
Seattle players and coaches are as dumbfounded about their home struggles as everyone else.
Coach George Karl points out that it is at least consistent with a regular season that saw Seattle compile a 31-10 record at home while tying a franchise record by going 26-15 on the road.
“It seems like all year long we have had a tightness at home,” Karl said.
That has continued in the playoffs. Karl said Houston has appeared to have more energy than the Sonics in games at KeyArena, while Seattle has appeared the more energetic team in games at The Summit - “which is kind of crazy,” Karl said.
Energy will be particularly important tonight, Karl said. He thinks the Sonics have to outrun the Rockets and get easy baskets, especially early in the game. They also need to create turnovers with a half-court trap that proved effective in Game 5.
Maybe then the game won’t be close at the end, which has been the Sonics’ most peculiar problem in playoff games at KeyArena. Seattle blew late leads in a Game 1 first-round loss to Phoenix and in Games 3 and 4 of this series.
But Seattle held off Phoenix on the road to stay alive in that series, and played well in the fourth quarter of its two victories at Houston.
“Sometimes at home when you get a close game you feel more pressure to win it,” Karl said. “Sometimes on the road you feel less pressure because you are not supposed to win it. I feel a little bit that in our home games we have gotten tighter rather than more confident (at the end). On the road it has been just the opposite and we have to change that.”