Kevin Pelton, SUPERSONICS.COM | October 10, 2005
The last several days, the Seattle SuperSonics have concluded practice by breaking up into three teams of five or six players for full-court scrimmages. These scrimmages have been intense, including several last-second finishes today.
"They're competitive because they know which team has won the most games," said Sonics Coach 
Bob Weiss. "They want to win. They get after each other - there's chatter, they're having fun ribbing each other - so that creates a lot of competitiveness."
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"Mateen Cleaves was impressive during the scrimmages."
Kent Horner/NBAE/Getty
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The short format means a lot of close finishes. With the Red team taking on Green early in the day, that finish wasn't so strong. The Red turned it over on an inbounds pass with 6.4 seconds left, leading to a
Johan Petro run-out dunk to put Green ahead with 2.6 seconds to play. Red then did not get off a shot after a timeout.
Earlier, a key call late went the way of the White team as 
Mikki Moore and 
Robert Swift battled for a loose ball. Moore was incredulous his team did not get the ball and, after a lengthy discussion, one of the referees officiating the scrimmage turned to the media to see what they saw.
The wildest finish came in a game between Green and White, with Green seemingly scoring on a 
Rashard Lewis reverse layup to go ahead late, only to have the score nullified by offensive goaltending by Petro. In the commotion after the call, Green guard 
Luke Ridnour snuck in to steal the ball and score the winning layup with 3.5 seconds left on the clock.
The day ended with invitee 
Roger Powell shadowing Rashard Lewis over multiple baseline picks to keep Lewis from getting an opportunity to tie the game with a late 3-pointer.
Mateen Cleaves and 
Nick Collison were both impressive during the scrimmages.
The results of the last several days of scrimmaging seem to validate Weiss' desire to create as much competition as possible.
"You keep score on everything and they'll play hard," he explained.
After Weiss cancelled yesterday's evening practice, the Sonics are done with two-a-days for the year. Today, they held their longest morning practice.
"We went a long time today - we were out there three hours with them; that's a long time to be on the floor," said Weiss. "I'm probably going to even cut that back, especially starting tomorrow because it's the day before a game. They've been going really hard, so our energy level was a little lower the last two days, but that's to be expected."
Weiss described the structure of the practice as fairly typical.
"We always are going to brush up on something defensively," he said. "We put an underneath out-of-bounds play in, brushed up on a couple of other things, put an isolation play in. Then we work on defense and the section you guys get to see is the scrimmaging at the end."
Center 
Vitaly Potapenko, who returned to practice Sunday after being limited by a strained hamstring, left practice early to go to the trainer's room, apparently having trouble again with the hamstring. Forward 
Vladimir Radmanovic continues to be held out of practice as the Sonics try to figure out what is causing pain and inflammation in his right foot. Powell was hit in the eye during the scrimmages, but returned later on.
Weiss, speaking about the NBA's proposed new dress code this season:
"My dress code used to be you've got to look better than me. That's all."
NBA TV's Real Training Camp will feature the Sonics practice tomorrow morning.
