Details: When: Tuesday, March 1st Where: Conseco Fieldhouse, Indiana Time (Seattle): 4:00 p.m. TV: Fox Sports, League Pass Projected Starters: <font color="green">Seattle (38-16)</font> Luke Ridnour Ray Allen Rashard Lewis Reggie Evans Jerome James <font color="Navy">Indiana (28-27)</font> Jamaal Tinsley Reggie Miller Stephen Jackson Jermaine O'Neal Jeffrey Foster Injury Troubles: <font color="green">Seattle</font> Mateen Cleaves: Sprained thumb, ruled out. Damien Wilkins: Knee tendinitis, ruled out. <font color="Navy">Indiana</font> Jonathan Bender: Sore knee, ruled out. Michael Curry: Strained hamstring, ruled out. John Edwards: Strained quadriceps, ruled out. Brief Notes: <ul> [*]The Sonics finished February in the worst possible manner, now can they start March on a brighter note? After not playing overly well and still managing to snag three victories after the All-Star break, Seattle was brought back to earth with a thud in Milwaukee with a thrashing - even Casanova saw six minutes at the end. Indiana will be a tough prospect though, despite there being no Ron Artest to annoy Sweet Lew, as Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson are both in the starting line-up. [/list] <ul> [*]Danny Fortson resumed against Milwaukee, with 10 rebounds in 22 minutes, and should resume his place in the rotation for this one. While Vitaly Potapenko has done an admirable job filling in, particularly in a potential division clinching win over Minnesota, Fortson's positive aspects go beyond the statsheet. He will help Reggie Evans out with handling O'Neal on the blocks, and try to keep rebounding demon Jeff Foster off the backboards. [/list] <ul> [*]Useful/less stat of the day: Nate McMillan attempted 485 shots in 1987/88, 438 shots in 1988/89, but only 305 in 1989/90. Conspiracy? No, his minutes just dropped. [/list] <ul> [*]Word of the day: Bloviate; v: To boast or over-estimate one's own worth. [/list]"For all his brilliance, it's hard to fathom how Luke Ridnour does not resort to bloviating." <div align="center">Random Family Guy Quote </div> Lois: Come on Stewie, you know you can't leave the table until you finish your vegetables. Stewie: Well, then I shall sit here until one of us expires, and you've got a good forty years on me, woman. Lois: Sweetie, it's broccoli, it's good for you. Now open up for the airplane ... Stewie: Never! Damn the broccoli, damn you, and damn the Wright brothers. All predictions, analysis and discussion relating directly to the game, both before, during and after, to be posted in this thread.
I see this being a difficult game - I don't see us matching up very well with the Pacers, especially Jermaine O'Neal who'll give us Garnett type problems where he'll either get busy in the post or kick it out to Miller, Jackson, Croshere et al. Jeff Foster can get to the offensive glass to gobble up the misses and Tinsley gave us all types of problems in Seattle, getting into the lane at will. Not to sound pessimistic but I've always had an ugly feeling about Pacer games, kind of like when we play Utah, for some reason.
Could hardly have started that game better, we already have 44% of our entire scoring output against Milwaukee in the first quarter alone. Lewis and Reggie on fire.
Lewis had a great game! Nice win for us to get back on track! He hit 2 killer 3 pointers and Radman added 1 too to take a lead with 9-0 spurt with 3:47 to go! That was a turning point of this game! Great W!
Great win, considering we are coming off a but whooping from Milwaukee. Jackson and Lewis really went at it tonight. Lewis is really staring to asert himself as an All-Star. Daniels and Vlad were big off the bench for us, especially Vlad, his three in the closing minutes was huge and gave us the momentum to close out the game.
We'll add that one to the list of "big and important" wins for the season. As Xman said, coming off an ass whooping, playing away from home against a team with Jermaine O'Neal, and boosted by the return of Stephen Jackson. Forget the fact Carlisle went early, forget the fact JO was in early foul trouble, for our own peace of mind, that was big.
I think O'Neal had bad ribs too. Plus Foster and Tinsley didn't play. But regardless it was a big win especially coming off that horrid performance in Milwaukee. Anyone else notice that Ray Allen refuses to swing the ball. If he doesn't have anything he holds and holds and holds the ball until someone comes up to set a screen. Several times tonight he held the ball until the shot clock had 3 or 4 seconds before finally giving it up, putting his teammates in a desperation shot situation. Maybe that's the way the plays are designed.
Like I said in an earlier post. The Sonics are a very predictable team. This year we have played well against post oriented teams. Indiana's main option is Jermaine O'Neal and they are not a team that can go very small and create match up problems for us~especially when Tinsley is out of the line up. We had extra motivation going into this game considering how we got rocked against the Bucks (who are a small team that presents match up problems for us). I knew that we'd give a good effort. Tomorrow's game is the third game that we'd play in four days. Under normal circumstances I'd say that we'd get our ass kicked but considering how little our starters played against Milwaukee we may actually have our legs. Cleveland's guard play is not particularly good outside of James so I don't think we should get beat when they do go small. Tomorrow is a game I don't particularly feel comfortable with but I feel more comfortable than I would have had we not gotten blown out in Milwaukee. As far as Ray, his shot selection has always been bad. You would think that someone who shoots the ball as well as he does would shoot a better percentage than 43% from the field and under 37% from three. He doesn't look to be selfish b/c he is a smooth player that doesn't play w/ the ball when but the more you watch him the more you see that he shoots a ton of contested shots early in the shot clock just b/c he can w/o penalty. Some may argue that he earned the right to shoot bad shots, but if we are going to praise our team for selflessness and ball movement, our number one option shouldn't be playing to fill up his own stat sheet and then criticize other players who are being aggressive offensively. There is a reason why he is averaging a career high 24.0 points a game. It's a contract year for him and best believe he is looking to put up a career high statline.
well, it was a close game, especially in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but the quick succession of treys made was the dagger in Indiana's heart. After that, the Pacers were hoisting up bad shots and look really frustated. still, the fact that Indiana managed to battle from 13 points down to 5 points up shows the Sonics'm weakness on the defensive and rebounding end. Rick Carlisle got ejected very early in the game, but did anyone see what went wrong? JO got fouled, Rick wasn't happy, so a technical was called, but what happened in the 2nd tech foul, i didn't really get it. it was pretty bad officiating too, if Jermaine O'Neal was sent to the line after being <u>blatantly hacked</u> by Rashard Lewis, the game's momentum would have swung in Indiana favor, especially since it was at their home
Rick got ejected for arguing a non-call on Ray Allen, he stepped over half court, already had a T and was thrown out.
