Details: When: Saturday, December 4th Where: Key Arena, Seattle Time (Seattle): 7:30 TV: Fox Sports, League Pass Projected Starters: <font color="green">Seattle (14-3)</font> Luke Ridnour Ray Allen Rashard Lewis Reggie Evans Jerome James <font color="Red">Portland (8-6)</font> Damon Stoudamire Derek Anderson Shareef Abdur-Rahim Zach Randolph Theo Ratliff Injury Troubles: <font color="green">Seattle</font> Vitaly Potapenko: Broken hand, ruled out. Ibo Kutluay: Knee tendinitis, ruled out. Flip Murray: Quadricep strain, unlikely. <font color="Red">Portland</font> Richie Frahm: Sore toe, ruled out. Viktor Khryapa: Foot surgery, ruled out. Vladimir Stepania: Sore knee, ruled out. Brief Notes: <ul> [*]After choking down the stretch in Portland earlier in the week, the Sonics will be keen as mustard to avenge that loss and keep up their undefeated record at the Key. This was so nearly snatched away from them against Utah, save for an overtime forcing triple from Vlad Radmanovic and nine points in the extra period for Ray Allen, who scored 38 in the win. [/list] <ul> [*]Danny Fortson was crucially ejected last time the two teams met, and look for the officials to keep a close eye on him again. For the first three quarters on Monday, Reggie Evans and Fortson did a superb job in blanketing him, but in the last, careless fouls allowed Randolph to get to 19 points, with nine of those coming from the stripe. Look for Evans to play pesky defense again and force Randolph into a lot of midrange jumpers; he still makes a fair few, but you'd rather him out there and away from the basket than underneath getting high percentage shots and offensive rebounds. However focus too much on Randolph and Shareef Abdur-Rahim will pounce, and he played probably his best game for the season against the Sonics with 25 points. [/list] <ul> [*]Ridnour Watch: The kid is something special. While for reasons known only to Nate McMillan, Luke didn't play the end of the last period or in overtime, but he still had time to produce 17 points, 10 assists four rebounds and two steals, while limiting Carlos Arroyo to just three points. He also posted a double doube on Monday, and look for him to take the challenge up to Damon Stoudamire once more. When Ridnour is on the floor, the Sonics run like a well oiled machine, so expect him to be on court a lot to exploit Portland's slow frontcourt in transition. [/list] All predictions, analysis and discussion relating directly to the game, both before, during and after, to be posted in this thread.
Up two at halftime, 52-50, and apart from a brief Sonic spurt early in the second, the game has basically been neck and neck. Radmanovic is the star of the show at the moment, posting 17 points, eight boards, three assists, three steals and a block in the first half, off the bench no less. Third quarters have generally been our strong period this season, hopefully we can have another one.
Big game for Vlad off the bench, 20/10 and five steals. Ray with only 14 too, so we needed Vlad's long range boost off the pine.
Vlad is turning into a bit of a clutch player for us.. Not necessarily in the 4th, but I've noticed him hit some key shots to stop runs and such on many occasions this season :]
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"When he's playing at his best, he kind of reminds me of Dirk Nowitzki," said Danny Fortson, who played in Dallas last season. "How many guys 6-10 can do what he does? When he's shooting like that and playing that type of defense, Dirk can't play defense. Not like that." </div> <font size="1">Full Story courtesy of Percy Allen and the Seattle Times.</font>
Good game last night by the Sonics. The game was very similar to the previous game against Portland, but the difference was we kept our composure in the 4th when they started chipping our lead away. Good to see Fortson keeping his composure as well.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting tradebark:</div><div class="quote_post">haha tigress that is an awesome sig </div> Ditto.
Glad you guys like my sig. It was sure hard finding images of Danny to use. Luckily out of the two that I found, his expression was perfect for what I needed.
