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Steve Kelley
Home court has been common advantage in series
By Steve Kelley
Seattle Times staff columnist
SAN ANTONIO — Welcome to the series of opposites.
Yin meets Yang. Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde. Up goes Down. Good turns Evil.
This is the series with the split personality. The series of dramatic mood swings, where the visitors' shots don't drop, their passes aren't caught and the flops aren't called. The series where everything gets scrambled from time zone to time zone.
Where Manu Ginobili looks like Father Time in Seattle and Michael Jordan in San Antonio. Where the Sonics play like champions at home and pretenders on the road.
This is the series where geography dictates the pace.
San Antonio looked so good at home in the first two games of this Western Conference semifinal it seemed like this series would be over in four or five. Then the Spurs looked ordinary in the third game in Seattle and certifiably awful in the fourth.
The Spurs were so bad in Seattle on Sunday coach Gregg Popovich, exempting Tim Duncan, publicly called his team's play "uninspired" and "sloppy." We can only imagine what he said in private.
On the road the Sonics played scared in the first two games. They showed too much respect for the Spurs. But at home in the resurrected Key they found renewed inspiration and confidence.
This is the series with the homesick blues. Where Hot turns Cold. Where Great becomes Mediocre. Where Today has very little to do with Tomorrow.
This is the series from Oz. Click your heels three times and repeat, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
Last night, the Spurs looked vulnerable for a half before remembering who they were and, more important, where they were.
In the second half, they (read Manu Ginobili) drove the ball into the teeth of the Sonics' tiny defense.
Without Rashard Lewis and Vlade Radmanovic, Sonics coach Nate McMillan tried to go micro again, playing lineups like Danny Fortson, Damien Wilkins, Ray Allen, Luke Ridnour and Nick Collison.
But the Spurs took advantage of the Sonics doubling on Tim Duncan to dump pass after pass into wide-open center Nazr Mohammed. The Spurs' center, who had scored 19 points in the first four games of the series, scored 19 in Game 5.
"Tonight was a night that we missed Rashard," Allen said. "As much as we can talk about what we did last game, tonight was a night where we missed him because we need that scoring coming from another angle.
"It's one thing to play without him for one game, but to keep playing without him, I missed him out there tonight."
And although the Sonics semi-controlled Duncan — 20 points and 14 rebounds — they had no answer for Ginobili, who beat them from three, beat them on drives and, unlike his games in Seattle, beat them on the free-throw line.
Ginobili, who looked so ordinary in Seattle there was concern he was tiring from his long, gold-medal summer, looked as fresh as October and as tough as a bull on the Pampas.
Ginobili was the difference, scoring a playoff-career-high 39 points, including 4 of 6 from behind the three-point line.
The Spurs won this fifth game last night 103-90, to take a 3-2 series lead, but unlike the first two games, the Sonics return for tomorrow's Game 6, knowing they can beat the Spurs in Seattle and force Game 7.
"This whole thing is about adjustments," Jerome James said. "We made adjustments after they beat us two games down here. We went home and won two. Then they came back and made adjustments [such as jumping out on Sonics picks-and-rolls]. They won on their home court, which is what they are supposed to do. They're a veteran team."( But you do not respect them, right, James?)
In the second quarter, when Allen had one of those quarters where it looks as if he believes it's the last quarter of his life, making 7 of 10 from the field and scoring 15 points, the Sonics scored on 15 of their 21 possessions.
He played that quarter with the stoic focus of a neurosurgeon, before tiring in the second half.
In this home win the Spurs were good, but not overwhelming. When they aren't making their jumpers they look very beatable.
And although he scored only four points in the second half and finished with only 19, you get the feeling, if this series continues its home-sweet-home theme, Allen isn't going to be stopped by Bruce Bowen in Seattle.
"Without Rashard in the lineup, we still had plays in front of us to make," Allen said. "We just did not do a good job of making them. I think tonight four or five of my shots went in and just popped out. I could not get mad. When I did get shots off it felt good. It just went in and out."
In this series Off becomes On. Go becomes Stop. Fast becomes Slow. And geography says Game 6 will be the prologue to a decisive Game 7.
