Loss Leaves Sonics Pointing Fingers Portland Capitalizes On Payton’s Broken Finger

Gary Payton’s broken ring finger on his left hand is hurting, and so are the Seattle SuperSonics’ chances of defending their Pacific Division title.

Bothered by the swarming defense of Portland that double- and triple-teamed him, Payton went scoreless in the fourth quarter as the Trail Blazers beat the Sonics 97-93 Monday night. The Sonics fell out of a first-place tie with Phoenix in the Pacific Division and dropped to fourth overall in the Western Conference.

“He’s somewhat bothered by the injury,” Sonics coach George Karl said.

That’s an understatement.

Payton scored 12 points on 6-for-18 shooting. In the previous four games against Portland this season, Payton averaged 25.5 points and shot 63 percent.

Karl said Payton will have surgery after the season to repair the broken finger.

“It’s a fracture that normally requires surgery, but he’ll wait until the end of the year,” Karl said.

Payton wasn’t available after the game. Kendall Gill said the broken finger seemed to affect the point guard.

“It affected him tonight,” Gill said. “I don’t think it will hurt his play in the playoffs.”

Rod Strickland led the Blazers, who clinched a playoff spot, with 21 points and put the Blazers ahead for good at 95-93 with a jumper over Payton with 44 seconds left.

Detlef Schrempf led the Sonics with 25 points and Shawn Kemp had 18 points and seven rebounds before fouling out with 1:56 left in the game.

Buck Williams had 11 rebounds, moving his career total to 12,006, third among active NBA players.