SONICS COACH NATE MCMILLAN:

On the game:
I thought the defense was much better. Even though we shot the ball well, we only gave up 40 points in the second half (and 55 in the first). When we can get some stops, run and execute our offense, then we’re in good shape.

On the Sonics third-quarter run:
I think it just says that you’re defending. You’re getting stops, and you’re able to get to the offensive end of the floor. When you have confidence in your defense, you tend to play a little bit more relaxed on the offensive end of the floor. We were getting stops, and we pretty much controlled them on the offensive end of the floor. When we got the ball, we just spread the floor and we had guys knocking down shots tonight.

On the Sonics early success:
I think it’s been several (things). I think this team is playing the game the right way. We are getting play from our first and second units. Ray (Allen) has been consistent. Rashard (Lewis) has been pretty consistent. Antonio (Daniels) has been really good for us. We’ve had different guys step in and have good nights for us - Reggie Evans, Danny Fortson and Nick Collison. We’re getting solid play from ten guys, and if you can do that, you have an opportunity to win games.

GUARD RAY ALLEN:

On the game:
I think everybody stepped up and played their part tonight. Rashard hit some big shots. Vlade (Radmanovic), Luke (Ridnour) and Antonio hit some big shots. (Our big men) played well for us down low defensively. We had it working on all cylinders except for a stretch where they went on a run, which in the NBA you expect. Other than that, we made shots and passed the ball well tonight.

PHILADELPHIA COACH JIM O'BRIEN:

On the Sonics three-point shooting:
On this night they had way too much fire power. From the three-point line, shooting 18 for 39, it is tough to beat that. Even when we challenged, shots went in. When a team shoots that hot and they continue to be hot, it’s a tough guard for us. This is their eighth game and they’ve been over 40 percent from the three-point line seven out of eight of them.

On Philadelphia's second-half offensive problems:
I thought that we did get stagnant. We didn’t have enough movement and when we got the lead in the third quarter, we did not move, we stood and watched each other and that’s not good. We need to have better flow and I think that hurt us.

GUARD ALLEN IVERSON:

On giving up the lead:
We had our opportunities. This game was ours to win. We just broke down. We had them down ten points, and then came down and gave them two threes - good looks at threes. We just fell apart from there. It was just like that. We had a lead, a couple stops for them, and a couple threes, then they were up. That was the most frustrating part, just having that lead. We had a ten-point lead. For them to come back, take the lead, then go ahead, that was tough because obviously you broke down on both ends of the court. If you’re getting things done at one end of the court, sometimes it saves you from the other end. But we didn’t get it done from either end of the court.

On the Sonics three-point shooting:
You can try to stop it. But that was hard to beat. Eighteen threes, that’s tough to stop. It’s hard to beat that. Especially when we’re not shooting the three ball well. I didn’t shoot it well tonight. We didn’t shoot it well as a team, so our baskets were two points, and they’re getting 18 threes. That’s tough. It’s easy to get into that [attempting to match the Sonics three pointers]. It’s easy to fall into that trap. But we have to continue to play the way we play. If three point shots are there, we take them. But not trying to go down there and match them, three for three. That’d be crazy. I’d definitely take two. They were just better than us tonight. We had our opportunities to win the game, and we just couldn’t pull it out. But I honestly feel good about the effort that we gave. I just didn’t like the way we broke down as a team.

On the Philadelphia offense:
I struggled. I struggled real bad in the third, and a little bit in the fourth. I had good looks in the third; I just couldn’t knock them down. We had good looks as a team, we just didn’t make shots. It was one of those nights. We had the lead. We had the chance to put them away. We just couldn’t do it.

FORWARD KYLE KORVER:

On the Sonics offense:
They have a lot of shooters out there. They are a pretty similar team to Phoenix. They have a lot of guys that can shoot; they just drive and kick - good athletes. I do not know what the percentage was, but it had to be pretty good from three, and they shot a lot of them. We just have to do a better shot of getting out there [to defend the three].

On how the Sixers lost their lead:
We just slowed down a little bit. When we are at our best is when we are really running. They kind of slowed down the pace on us a little bit. In the second quarter we really had it going for a little bit - we were really running. In the third quarter, I don’t know why, but it just stopped happening for us.

On the difficulty of defending the Sonics:
It is not only that they have numerous shooters, because they have guys that can also drive as well. You can’t just run out at them because they’ll go right past you. We have to do a better job on our closeouts. They were on fire for a while.

GUARD WILLIE GREEN:

On the Sonics shooting:
Those guys just hit shots on us. They hit open threes, [shots] with hands in their faces and everything else.

On how the Sixers lost the lead:
We just stopped being aggressive. We got lackadaisical on defense. We were fumbling the ball around a little bit, and they took advantage of all the mistakes that we made.

On how frustrating that is:
It is definitely frustrating. When you get a team down by 10 points in the third quarter, you should be able to kind of put your foot on them, but those guys hit big shots and we weren’t able come out with the win.

Notes: