Seattle (3) vs Sacramento (6): Official Game Five Thread

Details:

When: Tuesday, May 3rd
Where: Key Arena, Seattle
Time (Seattle): 7:30 P.M.
TV: TNT, Fox Sports

Projected Starters:

<font color="green">Seattle (3-1)
</font>
Luke Ridnour
Ray Allen
Rashard Lewis
Reggie Evans
Jerome James

<font color="navy">Sacramento (1-3)</font>

Mike Bibby
Cuttino Mobley
Peja Stojakovic
Kenny Thomas
Brad Miller

Injury Troubles:

<font color="green">Seattle</font>

None.

<font color="navy">Sacramento
</font>
None.

Brief Notes:

<ul>
[*]Can the Sonics close out this series in five games? Logic would say yes, with the team beating Sacramento well in the first two games of the series at the Key, and then breaking King hearts with a Ray Allen-inspired comeback of mammoth proportions in front of the ARCO faithful. Close out the game, the series and let the players rest their niggles - seems easy enough on paper, but of course it doesn't always work out that way.
[/list]
<ul>
[*]Ricky Adelman came out whining before Game Four, and Danny Fortson, Nate McMillan and Reggie Evans came back at him through the media. How will the officiating play out in front of a pro-Seattle crowd?
[/list]
* Useful playoff stat of the day: Ray Allen scored 26 points in the second half of Game Four. Peja Stojakovic scored six, and Mike Bibby scored one.

Quotable: "Evidently, (the Kings) must not be mentally tough if they're going to the newspaper and complaining. They're like my 11-month old baby daughter. She's spoiled. (The Kings) have been getting a lot of wins, so I understand. They're just crying, like my daughter. She wants her bottle. And I eventually may give it to her, but this is a different situation. I can give them a tissue or something just to wipe the tears off." -- Reggie Evans.

Random Family Guy Quote

Peter: And Joe, I've had new neighbors before, but none of them were half the man you are. Since you're half a man already, that splits them into some kind of fraction I can't even measure.

All predictions, analysis and discussion relating directly to the game, both before, during and after, to be posted in this thread.

 

Everybody should bring tissues to the key tonight to wave for Rick and his boys. Reggie will to busy rebounding to offer them one.

 

Sonics have been saying all the right things in the paper - one game at a time, need to come out focused and intense, Sac will be loose etc etc

It'd be a huge step in the maturity of this team to close out at home, even Rashard said he didn't think they could win another one in Sac.

Ray Allen predicted Vlad would have a big game, I hope that's true, when he played well earlier in the season we were very tough to beat.

I think tonights game will be Sac and their shot selection. If they start jacking up 25 footers with 20s on the clock (and missing) I can see them falling apart quickly.

Of course if they make them and get some confidence it will be a very tough game.

 

I can't even think analytically about tonight's game. I am just too excited to be going.

I expect some rough play from the King's bigs tonight. I expect Ray to get hit coming off screens and for Adelman to use his fouls. This is do or die for them, and I think they are too tough a team, even with their struggles this post season, to give up lightly.

Luke needs to take advantage of extra focus on Ray to penetrate and find Lewis on the wing. My guess is that he will find himself more open with focus on Ray.

I don't think Lew will have the open lane anymore. The King big's will close it out and try to draw a charge. That will open things up for Reggie and JJ.

I don't see anything changing for JJ. He has been the beneficiary of attention on Ray and Lew, and he has cashed in. There is not much I think the Kings can do except pick their poison. If I were them I would pick JJ over Ray or Lewis any day, until this series James has NEVER shown that he would be a consistent danger anywhere on the floor. I do expect them to have Miller take it to him early to try and get him in foul trouble. He can't take the bait, though.

I am predicting the officials call the game closer tonight to protect the players. There is enough perceived animosity that I bet they try to set the tone early in the 1st. I think that Lew, Reggie, Mobley and Miller will be the victims of the early foul calls.

The Sonics CAN win this game but I think Sacramento will fight tooth and nail until the final seconds.

 

Have fun at the game. Hope you leave happy

 

I heard Jess Kersey tell Nate that officials are targeting Fortson. Fortson said that his foul trouble is the biggest conspiracy in the history of sports? Should Nate reveal his source? Should Stern run Nate and Danny out of the league?

I'm joking of course but it will be interesting to see how quick the officials whistles are with Fortson tonight. This isn't a must win game, but if we approach it as such we should be able to close them out. It is all mental with the Sonics.

Jeff Van Gundy for president. He is the first I've seen go toe to toe w/ the commish. Stern may have the authority but he is way out of line for his fine and comments.

 

Rashard needs to pull his head out - he's playing like a nervous rookie, he looks shaky handling the ball, made some bad passes and lost Peja on backdoor cuts.

 

I really love playoff basketball...this game is intense. Rashard is playing horrible defense however...can't give Peja all those looks.

 

Shard's playing great in the fourth ... 11 straight points?

 

Bring on the Spurs/Nuggets!

 

Whoo! Tough game, Sac played great offense but I think they got tired and Mo Evans came in and gave us some trouble. If he played in game 4, Sac might've won that game. I don't know why he sat considering he came on strong latter part of the season.

Rashard came alive in the 4th quarter, finally. And Ray's layup at the end was incredible, on the replay you can see he stumbled, had to slide by Miller and finger roll at the last second.

Collison saved us with his hustle and smarts in the 2nd half.

Everyone played well and pretty much filled their roles to a T.

Pretty exhausting game to watch.

I hope the SA-Denver series goes 7 games to give us some rest (including me, heh)

 

What a game.

The Kings got two outstanding performances from their two most lethal scorers, and we countered with another brilliant team effort.

Rashard looks like he's getting back to All-Star Rashard (offensively at least), Ray is just being playoff Ray, Luke was very good in the second quarter, AD brought it, and Nick was outstanding again.

One of the league's best rookies.

 

One other thing the announcers mentioned, the Kings were killing us with open jumpers in the beginning of the 3rd. When we started switching with guys like Collison and Radmanovic that can stay in front, at least for a second or two, we disrupted their rhythm a bit which allowed us to get back in the game.

 

After we beat the Spurs, Brent Barry is going to see awfully silly regardless of the money.

I hope Denver can win at least 1 more game. Tire out the Spurs for us a little.

 

That play Luke made in the 1st half where he tipped the ball, went behind his back and flipped it left handed to Rashard for the dunk was swweeeet.

 

Glad to see that this series is over. We approached each game with a sense of urgency and dictated the pace for the entire series.

Winning 4-1 against a veteran's team is very impressive. Ray Allen probably put together his best five game stretch of his career in this series. He did it from all aspects and really led this team by example as opposed to his mouth. I've been impressed by how he's raised his level of play for the playoffs but I also understand that it a lot easier to get into a great offensive rhythm against Cuttino Mobley, an undersized and off injured Bobby Jackson, and a novice in Maurice Evans than it will be for him to get those same looks against Emmanuel Ginobli and Bruce Bowen. The Kings are the worst defensive team in the playoffs.

And right now we aren't far behind. There is no way that we will advance past the second round if we don't find ways to get stops. We gave up 118 points to a team that has only two legitimate scorers. There is no way that we are going to get 122 points against the Spurs so we are going to have to find ways of stopping people. At the rate we are going Ginobli will put up Ray Allen playoff numbers against us in the next series.

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic b/c we played very well offensively this series. I just think from watching this team this season that we are just as capable as any team in the West of going to the Finals. We've beaten a healthy Spurs team on their home court. We present matchup problems for every team in the league. We have the deepest roster in the league. The expectations shouldn't stop here.

Seven games to get four from SA. Put the Nuggets away so we can get this started. Our team is much better playing than they are resting and reading their press clippings.

Big Game James aka Big Snacks had his Super-Trash cape on during his post game interview. This instant stardom is going to his head a bit, but we are going to need a similar performance from him against the Spurs. He definitely sees the dollar signs so I won't put it past him.

2002 postseason revisited, fam~sans GP, avec Ray.

 

That's our Reggie.

 

I was lucky enough to be at row 5 right behind the Kings' bench for this game

REALLY intense and fun game to watch. The Key was just really loud for a good 90% of the game, and that play by Luke just made up for all his bad shooting nights

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting tradebark:</div><div class="quote_post">that play by Luke just made up for all his bad shooting nights </div>

The best pass I have seen since Brent Barry won NBA.com's assist of the season as a Clipper rookie.

I've watched the footage three times, and I'm still not completely sure how he did it.