Kings win on buzzer-beater
SEATTLE – Kevin Martin stood with his hand in the air, teammates racing toward him to celebrate, after he joined Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady in adding to the Seattle SuperSonics’ misery with some late-game theatrics.
The Sonics’ record-setting 14th straight loss, thanks to Martin, might be the most painful, and there is no end to the skid in sight.
Martin scored Sacramento’s final five points, including a frantic race the length of the court for a 20-footer as the clock expired, and the Kings extended Seattle’s losing ways Sunday night with a 103-101 win.
“They all (stink), all 14 of them,” Seattle’s Damien Wilkins said. “There are no moral victories. We worked too hard for that. We’re trying to win.”
It was the third time during the Sonics’ franchise-worst losing streak that Seattle watched someone take over the waning seconds to prolong their woeful slide. Bryant did it with an overtime game-winner a couple of weeks back, and McGrady returned to his old form last week to rally Houston from a late deficit.
Sunday night was Martin’s turn, capping his 26-point night with the game-winner. After Wilkins pulled Seattle even on a challenged 3-pointer over John Salmons with 6.1 seconds left, Sacramento opted not to call its last timeout. Instead, Martin took the inbound pass, dribbled through traffic and into the deep corner.
With Wilkins’ arms outstretched, Martin leaned in and swished the jumper, giving the Kings their first road win against a Western Conference team this season.
Officials reviewed the call to make sure the ball left Martin’s hand before the buzzer, and the Sonics remained on the court, hopeful of getting a chance at overtime and snapping their skid. But it was clear Martin got the shot off in time, concluding a wild final few minutes.
“Nobody wanted to go into overtime,” Martin said. “We just wanted to get this over with and get back to (Sacramento) as early as possible.”
Kevin Durant led Seattle with 19 points, but missed 15 of his 20 shots, and Wally Szczerbiak added 16. Seattle has yet to win in 2008 and didn’t help its cause by missing 10 free throw attempts.
Seattle is now one behind Miami’s 15-game losing skid that the Heat snapped on Saturday. Now the question is when will Seattle break the streak, with upcoming games against San Antonio, Cleveland, New York and Chicago to close out its homestand.
“When you’ve lost as many as we have it’s tough to go home at night,” Durant said.
Brad Miller and Mike Bibby both added 13 for Sacramento, which concluded a stretch with six of seven on the road. The Kings now play their next five at home.