Karl, Payton Differ About Outcome
What a difference a year makes.
On Saturday, George Karl sat in the exact same spot he did a year ago when his Seattle SuperSonics had finished sweeping the Houston Rockets to move on to the NBA Western Conference finals.
“They go on, we go home,” he said one year later after the Rockets beat the Sonics 96-91 in Game 7 of their semifinal playoff series.
“Now we’re sitting here after a very disappointing loss. But it’s a loss I think in time we can have some courage and proud feelings about.
“I loved how they fought today. They showed a lot of guts and played with a lot of courage and a lot of good stuff. I thought it was a hell of a series and I think deep down inside we have a lot of respect for one another.”
The respect may be a problem within the Sonics, however, where dissension in the ranks disrupted team chemistry during the season.
Gary Payton, who led the Sonics with 27 points, questioned Saturday’s game plan.
“If we would have pressed them from end to end instead of with three minutes to go, it probably would have been different,” Payton said. “But you can’t go back.”
Karl said he tried to impress upon his players throughout to keep the defensive pressure up but said it wasn’t until about six minutes remained in the game that the team went to some serious trapping.
“It’s all our fault, I guess,” Payton responded. “We wouldn’t play like that unless it was planned for us to play like that.”
Payton said the Sonics’ smaller lineup worked and they started getting turnovers to trim a double-digit Houston lead and make it close as they tried to become the sixth team in NBA playoff history to rally from a 3-1 deficit.
“I think he should have done that for all the game, but we didn’t,” Payton said. “Things just don’t work at times. We just don’t do things the right way. Hopefully, we learn from this.”
Karl indicated he didn’t want to get into the blame game.
“I’m not going to criticize players,” he said, adding he also didn’t want to overscrutinize. “I just think we didn’t make shots.”