One With Special Meaning Sonics, Jazz Looking Down Road When They Get Together Tonight

When the Seattle SuperSonics play the Utah Jazz tonight at KeyArena, a microanalyis says the game is one of the biggest of the regular season.

But a macroanalysis suggests it has an even larger meaning for the overall prospective of the season because it will go a long way in determining homecourt advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs and could, ultimately, decide who goes to the NBA Finals.

Are we overstating it? Hardly.

Coaches can spin all they want about how it’s not impossible to win on the road in the playoffs. But the facts don’t lie. Five of the past six NBA finalists from the West had homecourt advantage in the conference finals. The only exception was that crazy series between Houston and San Antonio in 1993-94 when each kept winning away from home.

And, in the past 10 seasons, eight of the finalists have had the same advantage in the conference finals. Two, including Seattle in 1995-96, were pushed to a decisive seventh game in the conference finals. Both won, advancing to the NBA Finals.

“One or two games a year have a tremendous amount of influence,” Sonics coach George Karl said, “and (tonight’s) is the biggest one we will probably have. It will be an NBA playoff game in the regular season.”

The game certainly is not the end-all for the best record in the West. But it hardly seems the hot Jazz - which has won five games in a row - or the Sonics, who have finally realized they need to take every game seriously, are going to lose many of their final 10 games.

This is a crucial, must-win situation for Seattle because it trails 2-1 in the season series and needs to win to even up the first tiebreaker - head-to-head competition. The second goes to the team with the better record against the Western foes; the Sonics have the edge in that.

What makes this all necessary, of course, is the Sonics have kicked some winnable games recently, including one to Golden State Wednesday. The Jazz overtook Seattle for the West’s best record, which the Sonics had held since December.

While Seattle has gone 16-8 since the All-Star break, the Jazz are 21-2, including a 15-point demolition of the Los Angeles Lakers Saturday.

“With the games we lost against teams like Golden State, we made this a very important game for us,” Sonics forward Detlef Schrempf said. “You can’t count on them losing more games and they can’t count on us losing more games. So it’s a big game, and it should be interesting. You shouldn’t leave anything on the court.”

Karl certainly is not leaving anything on the bench. This game is so important the Sonics scrapped their every-other-game regimen with Nate McMillan and will play him, even though he played Saturday.

“I think so much of the Utah game is who is the aggressive team,” Karl said. “They do it a little differently than we do it. They are more a push and hold and grind. They play Wrestlemania with you. We kind of pressure you and trap you and disrupt you. Offensively, there is not a team in the NBA that executes better than Utah.”

It also offers a marquee matchup: Karl Malone and John Stockton against Vin Baker and Gary Payton.