| SuperSonics Live By The Three And Manage To Survive Without It Authored by Hunter Johannason - February 23, 2005 - 12:25 am
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Tuesday night the Seattle SuperSonics, suffering a two game losing skid that started before the All-Star break and minus one Danny Fortson, went into a Houston and stole a game 87-85 versus a surging Rockets team while shooting a paltry 4-26 (16%) from the three-point arc and 31-85 (36.5%) from the field overall. The Rockets, on the other hand, finished the game shooting 7-18 (38.9%) from the arc, 33-76 (43.4%) overall. Throughout the entirety of the game all I could think was, “if the Sonics do not get hot soon, they will not win this game.” The Sonics never got hot as it turns out…How did they win this game?
Offensive rebounding!
The Sonics managed to “corral” (Kevin Calabro reference implanted in my brain since the age of ten) 17 offensive rebounds, making 50 overall. That is 17 extra chances for the Sonics to hoist up another shot, 6 of those chances delivered by the Sonics hustling power forward Reggie Evans who finished with 11 rebounds total. To add to that, Reggie was working alone tonight as Danny Fortson (6 rebounds a game), the other Sonic bruiser was in Pennsylvania tending to his sick grandmother.
Now granted, the Sonics did have some questionable calls go there way (Yao Ming offensive hook on the baseline and the David Wesley push off the Mutombo miss with 20 seconds left), however this is very refreshing as it shows the Sonics are getting the respect befitting of one of the top teams in the league. And the fact they got those calls in Houston makes it even sweeter…I saw the same thing happen in Phoenix the last time the Sonics were in the desert.
Tonight, for the first time, I saw a team that can actually with the title. A team that did everything it took to win the game. When nothing was going right they kept at it, refusing to let the game get out of reach. Perhaps they should adopt a new slogan. Is “Refuse To Lose” taken?
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