Sonics Do The Expected Seattle Goes Through Motions In 108-96 Win Over Sacramento

It was simply another win for the Sonics on Saturday night, another win of what figures to be many.

A win that was forgotten the minute it ended, the kind of game that gets played during this early feeling-out stage of the NBA season, when nothing means too much.

The Sonics beat Sacramento 108-96 in front of 17,072 at KeyArena, a game that was exactly as its score sounds - never really close enough for discomfort, never far enough away for relaxation.

“I don’t think we were really into it but we did what was necessary to win,” said forward Detlef Schrempf of a night when the Sonics never trailed, but led by only four early in the fourth quarter.

“Sometimes as long as you win, that’s the bottom line,” Schrempf said. “You can’t play great every time out.”

And the bottom line is that the Sonics won their sixth in a row, beating Sacramento by an average of 14 points in two games that spanned five days.

The Sonics were plagued by missed lay-ins and dunks. In one third-quarter stretch, Seattle missed four slams.

“If we finish our offensive opportunities, we score 120 points,” said head coach George Karl. “We missed so many lay-ups, it got scary there for a while… . Our offense stopped us from finishing the game off.”

The Sonics shot only 35 of 76 (46.1 percent), their worst in their past four games.

Shawn Kemp, who had torched the Kings for 31 on Monday, finished with 25 points but blew several dunks and lay-ins. Still, Kemp had 12 rebounds and seven assists despite being limited to 35 minutes when he picked up his fifth foul with 10:50 left in the game.

Corliss Williamson made a free throw to finish off a three-point play as a result of that fifth foul to cut the Sonics’ lead to 81-77.

Karl took some of the blame for the foul. “I’m probably playing (Kemp) some minutes he shouldn’t be playing to try to get him into better shape,” Karl said. “His fifth foul, I just wanted to stretch him a little bit to get some conditioning in for him.”

But for whatever reason, the loss of their leader seemed to spark the Sonics. A half-minute later, Eric Snow stole the ball and fed Hersey Hawkins for a lay-in that became a three-point play. Then another steal by Sam Perkins led to two free throws by Craig Ehlo to make it an 86-77 game.

The Kings cut the lead back to 87-81 when Ehlo led an 11-0 run by making three straight steals, all of which led to Sonic baskets, and which finally put the game away.

Ehlo finished the game with five steals on a night when the rest of his numbers didn’t look like much - something Karl said is deceiving.

“Craig’s statistics are not very impressive,” Karl said. “But we just did our first plus-minus stats of the season (a comparison of how the Sonics do when a player is on the court compared to how they do when that player is on the bench) and he is twice as high as anybody on the team, which to me is very impressive.

“He’s like Nate (McMillan) in that area. When he is on the court, he might not seem like he’s playing that well, but it sure seems like the team executes well.”

Ehlo said the steals were merely a function of the Sonics’ defense.

“I love being on both sides of the coin of this defense,” Ehlo said. Also playing well was Sam Perkins, who hit 4-of-5 3-pointers off the bench.

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This sidebar appeared with the story: SuperSonics 108, Kings 96 FG FT Reb SACRAMENTO Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Owens 33 3-10 5-6 2-8 3 1 11 Polynice 34 5-11 0-0 0-5 0 5 10 Causwell 14 1-2 0-0 1-6 0 4 2 Abdul-Rauf 37 4-10 1-1 0-1 3 3 10 Richmond 39 9-18 7-8 0-3 2 3 27 Edney 19 3-6 3-4 0-2 3 2 11 Smith 30 4-5 4-8 3-6 5 4 12 Simmons 15 3-4 0-0 1-1 1 2 6 Williamson 18 1-3 5-5 1-5 0 5 7 Hurley 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Totals 240 33-69 25-32 8-37 17 29 96 Percentages: FG .478, FT .781. 3-Point Goals: 5-13, .385 (Edney 2-4, Richmond 2-5, Abdul-Rauf 1-3, Owens 0-1). Team Rebounds: 11 Blocked shots: 3 (Polynice, Smith, Simmons). Turnovers: 21 (Richmond 6, Williamson 5, Abdul-Rauf 3, Owens 3, Polynice, Causwell, Edney, team). Steals: 4 (Causwell, Richmond, Edney, Smith). Technical fouls: Williamson 1:31 third. Illegal defense: 1. FG FT Reb SEATTLE Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts Kemp 35 8-18 9-11 5-12 7 5 25 Schrempf 37 4-11 6-8 2-2 4 1 16 McIlvaine 27 3-6 1-2 0-4 1 5 7 Hawkins 32 4-9 3-3 1-3 3 2 11 Payton 37 7-14 4-6 0-2 9 2 19 Perkins 21 4-6 0-0 1-3 0 1 12 Stewart 11 2-2 3-4 2-4 0 2 7 Snow 16 2-5 0-0 1-3 0 3 4 Ehlo 20 1-3 5-6 0-3 1 2 7 Wingate 3 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 0 Graham 1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Totals 240 35-76 31-40 12-37 26 23 108 Percentages: FG .461, FT .775. 3-Point Goals: 7-16, .438 (Perkins 4-5, Schrempf 2-3, Payton 1-4, Ehlo 0-1, Hawkins 0-3). Team Rebounds: 8 Blocked shots: 5 (McIlvaine 4, Schrempf). Turnovers: 10 (Kemp 4, Stewart 3, Payton, Snow, Ehlo). Steals: 12 (Ehlo 5, Payton 2, Hawkins 2, Kemp, Perkins, Snow). Technical fouls: Illegal defense 8:19 second. Illegal defense: 1. Sacramento 18 29 25 24 - 96 Seattle 27 27 26 28 - 108 A-17,072 (17,072). T-2:17.