Jazz Put Sonics On Keisters Determined Utah Forces Seventh Game

Pray to the basketball gods. Grab the lucky charms and put them in your sweaty palms. Get out the smelling salts for the SuperSonics, who need a swift kick or a quick whiff of something. Then make a voodoo doll that looks like Karl Malone and start poking him with pins.

Thursday night at the Delta Center, the Utah Jazz stuck it to the SuperSonics 118-83 to even the Western Conference finals 3-3, forcing a Game 7 at Key Arena Sunday afternoon.

An eyelash from closing out the series in Game 5 last Tuesday night and advancing to the NBA Finals, the Sonics are 48 minutes away from vindication or vacation.

This was an embarrassing defeat, but one that won’t matter if the Sonics win at home Sunday. The Jazz, however, have planted many seeds of doubt, and the Sonics hope that this thing won’t grow into a redwood.

The Jazz, rebounding from a 3-1 deficit with two straight wins, toyed with the Sonics while their crowd taunted Payton with a derisive chant of “Gaaarrr-reee, Gaaarrr-reee.” It didn’t seem to bother the All-Star point guard as much as the Jazz did, but the outcome was determined by the time the mocking started in the third quarter.

The Jazz burst to a 12-0 lead at the outset and the Sonics never got closer than seven after that.

It was a mystifying effort by the Sonics, who can only hold onto the fact that they are playing Game 7 at home. All of the momentum has shifted to Utah. The Jazz continued to get solid performances off their bench, and John Stockton actually checked in for the first time in the series.

For the Sonics, there is another troubling factor to consider. Nate McMillan, the Sonics’ super sub, is hobbled by a pulled hamstring that is severely reducing his effectiveness.

If you want to embrace the positive aspects, the Sonics have not lost three games in a row all season. This is the first time they dropped two straight since November.

The Sonics frequently looked clueless on the floor, and afterward they were still bewildered. In essence, they couldn’t come up with loose balls, perimeter shots, their usual defense or explanations for the dreadful performance.

“You seen it, we got blown out,” Payton said after the Sonics’ biggest loss of the year. It also tied the most lopsided defeat in franchise playoff history, matching the Bullets’ 35-point devastation in Game 6 of the NBA Finals in 1978.

“That’s about as bad as it gets,” said Frank Brickowski.

If there had been a hole in the locker room, Hersey Hawkins would have crawled in it.

“I was a disgrace tonight,” said Hawkins, who went 0-for-8 from the field. “I can’t shoot any worse from the perimeter than I did tonight. There was no reason for me to play bad in this particular game.”

That would go for the Sonics as well. Astonishingly, they came and were conquered. With ease.

“I could sit here and criticize my basketball team, but the truth of the matter is if we would have played good, I don’t know if we could have won the basketball game,” said coach George Karl. “They were that good.”

And, yes, the reverse was true. Individually, the Sonics got 26 points and 14 rebounds from Shawn Kemp, 16 points from Detlef Schrempf and 14 from Sam Perkins off the bench. But collectively, they had their problems.

On offense, they settled too often on outside jumpers and went 5-for-18 from 3-point range for the second consecutive game. They committed 23 turnovers and basketball suicide again, giving them an average of 22.5 in the past four games.

The Sonics couldn’t get a handle on what happened in the game either, wondering about a defense that had held Utah to an 87.8 scoring average before Thursday night.

“We need all five guys working out there in sync,” Perkins said. “It only takes one guy for the defense to collapse. We weren’t really aggressive enough to play the style of defense that we want.”

Jazz 118, SuperSonics 83

FG FT Reb SEATTLE Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Schrempf 36 4-8 6-7 0-3 2 1 14 Kemp 37 10-15 6-10 5-14 0 5 26 Johnson 15 0-2 1-2 0-1 0 1 1 Hawkins 27 0-8 7-8 1-1 3 2 7 Payton 44 3-7 3-4 2-9 7 4 10 Perkins 25 5-10 1-1 0-2 2 2 14 McMillan 12 1-3 0-0 1-3 2 1 2 Askew 20 2-6 0-0 1-1 1 4 5 Brickowski 10 1-3 0-0 0-1 0 4 2 Wingate 6 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 1 2 Snow 4 0-2 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 Scheffler 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Totals 240 27-66 24-32 10-35 19 25 83 Percentages: FG .409, FT .750.

3-Point Goals: 5-18, .278 (Perkins 3-7, Askew 1-1, Payton 1-2, Schrempf 0-1, Kemp 0-1, Brickowski 0-2, Hawkins 0-4).

Team Rebounds: 7.

Blocked shots: 4 (Kemp, Hawkins, Payton, Perkins).

Turnovers: 23 (Kemp 5, Payton 5, Perkins 3, Schrempf 2, McMillan 2, Askew 2, Johnson, Hawkins, Brickowski, Wingate).

Steals: 8 (McMillan 3, Schrempf, Hawkins, Askew, Brickowski, Snow).

Technical fouls: Payton, 5:32 fourth; illegal defense, 10:33 third. Illegal defense: 1.

FG FT Reb UTAH Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Morris 28 4-6 0-0 0-6 4 2 8 Malone 39 13-22 6-9 2-10 7 2 32 Spencer 26 3-5 0-0 3-7 1 3 6 Hornacek 35 6-10 8-8 0-2 3 3 23 Stockton 35 5-11 4-4 0-2 12 2 14 Foster 13 2-5 3-4 1-2 0 3 7 Eisley 14 1-2 0-0 0-1 4 1 2 Russell 29 5-6 0-0 1-4 2 4 12 Carr 13 3-4 2-3 0-0 1 4 8 Benoit 4 2-2 0-0 0-2 0 0 5 Keefe 2 0-0 1-2 0-1 1 1 1 Ostertag 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Totals 240 44-73 24-30 7-37 35 25 118 Percentages: FG .603, FT .800.

3-Point Goals: 6-15, .400 (Hornacek 3-6, Russell 2-3, Benoit 1-1, Spencer 0-1, Stockton 0-2, Morris 0-2).

Team Rebounds: 3.

Blocked shots: 7 (Spencer 4, Russell 2, Stockton).

Turnovers: 11 (Hornacek 3, Eisley 2, Benoit 2, Morris, Malone, Stockton, Foster).

Steals: 15 (Malone 4, Hornacek 3, Morris 2, Russell 2, Spencer, Stockton, Eisley, Keefe).

Technical fouls: illegal defense, 11:24 third; illegal defense, 5:24 third.

Illegal defense: 1.

Seattle 22 25 20 16 - 83

Utah 35 24 27 32 - 118

A-19,911 (19,911). T-2:24.

Officials-Ed T. Rush, Steve Javie, Jess Kersey.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NBA PLAYOFFS Sunday: Utah at Seattle, 4 p.m. (KHQ)