Sonics trip up Bobcats

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Most of their little guys are as consistent as clockwork, but it’s the big men that make the Sonics a soap opera.

The misunderstood backup forward who collects technical fouls as quickly as he does rebounds. The troubled center, the overachieving power forward, and the soft-spoken small forward fighting for respectability.

Then there’s Vladimir Radmanovic, a melodrama all by himself.

So often, as his fortunes sway so do the Sonics’. And it was that way Friday night during a 103-97 victory over the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, who turned what appeared to be a rout into a nail-biting conclusion.

The Radmanovic roller coaster, which had been in a tailspin, reversed itself as the Sonics forward drained 8 of 12 shots, including five 3-pointers, for 21 points.

“I’m trying to put that behind me,” Radmanovic said of his 3-for-19 shooting the previous two games. “If I think about the last two games, it is going to screw up the next five games, and I don’t want that to happen.”

Still, as flawless as Radmanovic was on the offensive end, he was a big reason why Bobcats rookie forward Emeka Okafor scored a career-high 27 points and center Primoz Brezec added 22.

“I thought the defense was there, but (Thursday) night he didn’t have his shot,” coach Nate McMillan said of Radmanovic. “Tonight his shot was there, but his defense was a little weak. That’s a part of the game.”

Not exactly. It’s the Sonics’ game, and it’s a sometimes-beautiful, sometimes-chaotic formula that allowed them to close the books on the 2004 portion of the season with a 22-6 record.

“A lot of what’s been going on, we’ve been proving to people that basketball is not just the superstars on the floor,” said Ray Allen, who scored 18 points on 6-for-16 shooting. “It’s teams playing together and playing hard.”

For the second time this season, Allen was not one of the Sonics’ top two scorers, which is just as much a testament to his consistency as it is to Seattle’s selfless play Friday night.

Against Atlanta on Thursday, the Sonics had eight players score at least six points.

Friday night, four reserves combined to score 50 points.

Antonio Daniels and Nick Collison each had 10 points, and Danny Fortson added nine and eight rebounds.

Still, the strong bench play was nearly not enough to counter Charlotte’s dominant interior game.

What appeared to be an easy victory turned ugly during a third quarter in which Charlotte outscored Seattle 30-18 to erase a 57-45 halftime deficit and tie the score at 75.

McMillan described the game as “chippy” because of the frequent grabbing, thrown elbows and encounters with officials.

And the antics of Fortson and Jerome James, who verbally sparred with officials, were again a subplot.

“Drama is OK as long as you win,” Fortson said. “Drama really looks bad whenever you lose. Thank God we won this game or else I’d be answering a whole different set of questions.”

The Bobcats were unable to contain their emotions and, in the fourth quarter, they were the ones bickering with officials as the Sonics went to the free-throw line 13 times.

Radmanovic unlocked the fourth with a 3-pointer and drained another on the Sonics’ next possession for an 81-77 lead.

Charlotte pulled to two points back (91-89), but the Sonics answered with a 12-4 run that was capped by a thunderous Rashard Lewis (27 points) dunk with 26.3 seconds left.

“What happened in the past, we got to put that behind us,” Radmanovic said.