| Sonics Look Great In Back-To-Back Mid-West Wins Authored by Hunter Johannason - March 3, 2005 - 3:39 pm
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The Seattle Supersonics took a detour to the mid-west on Tuesday and Wednesday to take on two of the Eastern Conferences better teams, starting with the Indiana Pacers and following it up with the Lebron James powered Cleveland Cavaliers.
Nerves were high before and during the Sonics Tuesday night game versus the Indiana Pacers as the Sonics were coming off a 99-73 route at the hands of the last place Milwaukee Bucks. While it was close for most of the game, the Sonics, backed by budding superstar Rashard Lewis’ 30 points, used a fourth quarter rally to defeat the Pacers 101-93. Down 89-84, a Rashard Lewis 3-pointer triggered a 9-0 run that put the Sonics up 93-89 with 3:35 remaining. The Sonics never looked back.
With the nervousness out of the way, Seattle traveled to Cleveland on Wednesday to take on the Cavaliers for Dan Gilbert’s first game as the Cav’s owner. LeBron was LeBron, knocking down a career-high five 3-pointers and finishing with 32 points. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Cleveland’s John Turturro (O Brother Where Art Thou?) lookie-likey was also tough to stop adding 17 points, using his great footwork to pull off moves reminiscent of a young Vlade Divac.
It was not enough, however, as the Sonics cruised to a 103-86 victory giving the Cavaliers their first four-game losing streak of the season. The game was closer than the score might indicate as the Sonics used a barrage of threes to make a late run and pull away from the Cav’s. Ray Allen took home high-score honors for the Sonics finishing with 31. The bench did their part as well, outscoring the Cavaliers bench 37-8, most coming on the heels of Vladimir Radmanovic, the Sonics sniper of the bench, who finished with 19 points on 5-8 shooting from beyond the 3-point stripe.
With the wins, the “over-achieving” Seattle SuperSonics proved that Milwaukee was a fluke and that even the best teams can be off for a game or two. The Sonics schedule does not get any easier as they must take on Detroit on Friday and Phoenix on Sunday. Watch for the Evans-Wallace battle down low in the Detroit game, as both teams are stacked with lunch pale-carrying bruisers. And win or lose, the Sonic-Phoenix match up is never a let down and might possibly be the most exciting and even match up in the NBA today.
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