Spurs find finishing touch
SEATTLE – The dream is over.
A sublime season that began with paltry expectations and went on to reach unforeseen heights ended at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs Thursday night, when the Seattle SuperSonics dropped a 98-96 decision in Game 6 of their Western Conference semifinal series, losing four games to two.
Both the players and the fans went from the highest high to the lowest low when Tim Duncan banked in a short shot with 0.5 seconds left to provide the final margin.
Though the Spurs lost the conference semifinals to the Los Angeles Lakers on a jumper by Derek Fisher last season, the same would not happen on this night.
Ray Allen’s 3-pointer from the corner at the buzzer bounced tantalizingly off the rim and dropped helplessly away, sending the Sonics to their first home defeat of the postseason.
“To have it end on a little chip pass by Tim Duncan, it hurts, it’s terrible,” the Sonics’ Danny Fortson said. “It’s been a great year. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have more answers, but right now it’s tough to drive home.”
However, there was a terrible miscommunication on the Spurs’ final basket.
Because Jerome James had fouled out, Vitaly Potapenko was in the game. The Sonics were playing a zone.
Potapenko was guarding Duncan on the left block. As Manu Ginobili made a drive to the basket, Potapenko was waving his hand for somebody to move.
But as he was waving his hands, Duncan slipped behind him to the right block. Ginobili found Duncan under the basket, and he simply flipped in a shot over the leaping Potapenko, quieting the stunned crowd.
“I think I overcommitted a little bit to help (on Ginobili),” Potapenko said. “I thought he was going to put up a shot. I think I did a little too much.”
It was the end of an interesting night for Duncan.
If the Sonics knew before the game that the first-team all-NBA forward would have missed his first 10 shots of the game and made only six field goals, they would have taken their chances with that prospect.
As it was, the Sonics could not take advantage of what was an off night by Duncan, though they came pretty close.
The turning point may have occurred with 8:08 left in the game. Duncan had been struggling all night, but the Spurs kept going to him.
On this play, Duncan ran a pick-and-roll with Brent Barry. Duncan went up over Collison and was fouled, but when he came down he landed on Collison’s foot and rolled his left ankle, though it was not the one that kept him out of the last month of the season.
Duncan lay on the floor for a minute. But if he did not get up and shoot his free throws, he would not have been permitted to re-enter the game. So he got up, walked to the other end of the floor, then walked back and calmly stroked both foul shots.
It apparently forced him to focus, because the next time down the floor he hit a 20-foot jumper, which until then he had not been able to make the entire evening.
From there, he hit three of his final four shots, including the game-winner, finishing with 26 points and nine rebounds, hitting just 6 of 21 shots but 14 of 17 free throws.
Duncan led the Spurs, but he had plenty of help. Tony Parker had 14 points, as did Robert Horry. Ginobili had 13 points and seven assists and Nazr Mohammed had 12 points.
Allen led the Sonics with 25 points on 11-for-25 shooting and Daniels once again was staunch in place of Rashard Lewis, scoring 22 points with five assists and three rebounds.
Lewis missed his third consecutive game with a sprained left big toe. An MRI performed Wednesday revealed he had a deep contusion of the sesamoid.
The question will always be asked what would have been had the Sonics had both Lewis and Vladimir Radmanovic, who missed all but the first game of the series after spraining his ankle.
As it is, the Sonics have to live with the knowledge they put up a spirited fight and played a wonderfully entertaining game, one that went back and forth with great drama.