Lost: long losing skid
MIAMI – Kevin Durant said it felt like Seattle won a world championship. Pat Riley sounded as if his championship feeling couldn’t have been farther away.
The Seattle SuperSonics were more than happy to ruin Dwyane Wade’s comeback game.
Chris Wilcox scored 20 points, Damien Wilkins added 19 and the SuperSonics spoiled Wade’s return to the Heat lineup by beating Miami 104-95 Wednesday night – Seattle’s first win in nine games this season.
Durant, the highly touted rookie, finished with 18 on 6-of-16 shooting for Seattle, which stormed out to a 20-point halftime lead to negate whatever emotional lift Miami got from Wade’s comeback from off-season surgeries.
“It feels good to get that monkey off our back, but at the same time we are not a satisfied team,” said Delonte West, who scored 16 points and hit a clutch 3-pointer late to seal the win. “We are still hungry and at the end of the day, we are still 1-8.”
On this night, 1-8 felt supremely better to Seattle than 1-7 does to Miami.
Wade scored 15 points in 25 minutes on 5-for-9 shooting for Miami, which is 0-4 at home for the second time in franchise history.
“I’m excited. I came out of the game healthy and got some things I can look at to build on,” Wade said. “But as a team, it hurts to lose another ballgame, especially at home, in front of our fans.”
Ricky Davis scored 19 points on just 5-for-18 shooting for Miami.
Since winning the 2006 NBA title in Dallas, Miami has gone 45-49 – and Riley has seen enough.
“Unless you feel like you have something at stake or something to lose as a player, then things won’t change,” Riley said. “If you don’t feel like the Heat mean something to you … you have to have a real meeting with yourself about what you care about. I don’t see a team that really feels like they have anything at stake here. They come in, they play, they get beat, they go home, they go out into the night.”
The Heat were down by 23 early in the fourth quarter, before an 18-3 run led by Wade made things interesting.
He had assists on Miami’s first four baskets of the spurt, then banked in a jumper and added a fifth assist on Jason Williams’ 3-pointer that got the Heat within 94-83.
Davis’ three-point play cut the lead to eight, but West’s 3-pointer – Seattle’s 10th of the game – restored the Sonics’ double-digit lead and essentially sealed the outcome.
“Our guys competed tonight,” Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo said. “They came out in the third quarter with energy and after Miami made their great run at the end of the third, we started the fourth with the same way.”
By the time Wade entered the game, Seattle had Miami in a hole.
The Sonics led 22-12 with 4:49 left in the opening quarter, when Wade entered amid loud roars from the home crowd. He missed his first jumper, a 20-foot try from the right baseline about 2 1/2 minutes later, but he soon looked like the Wade of old.
Wade’s first basket was a long jumper and his second was an acrobatic layup, replete with a tumble to the court – as he did so many times in his first four seasons. He dove for loose balls, didn’t seem to shy from contact and showed flashes of the explosiveness that was missing late last season when the knee pained him.
It just wasn’t enough.