Kevin Pelton, SUPERSONICS.COM | May 3, 2005
As a coach,
Nate McMillan has never been here before. Neither have many of his players. Here is one win away from a series victory, which the Seattle SuperSonics are after taking Game 4 of their series with the Sacramento Kings Sunday in Sacramento. Returning home to Seattle for tonight's Game 5
(7:30 p.m., FSN, 
), the Sonics are 48 minutes away from potentially advancing to the Western Conference Semifinals.
"It's something new for us," said McMillan after his team practiced Monday. "You try to prepare them for a great opportunity and talk about the things we need to do, what we've done well and the moment of (tonight). Hopefully we come out with that intensity, that energy, that scrappy play that we showed in Games 1, 2 and 4."
Despite the fact that teams with a 3-1 lead in series have historically been difficult to beat, the Sonics are taking nothing for granted. The players were excited on the plane flight home from Sacramento Sunday night - "And they should have been - they played a solid second half of basketball," as McMillan said - but Monday's practice was all business, reinforced by the team's comments afterwards.
"That last game is always a tough game," said McMillan. "After facing a team two, three, four and now the fifth time, you know each other. They'll come in here pretty loose and it's an opportunity for us. It's going to be a tough game, and we're going to have to come with our same energy, we're going to have to limit our mistakes and we've definitely got to establish that we can defend and stop these guys."
|
"It's very important because they're going to be so charged up. We have to play 48 minutes."
Rocky Widner/NBAE/Getty
|
|
"It's very important because they're going to be so charged up," said forward
Rashard Lewis. "We have to play 48 minutes."
While some teams can adopt a defeated mentality after falling behind in a series, the Sonics are anticipating the Kings coming out more motivated than they have been throughout this series and want to match that level while keeping the series from returning to Sacramento.
"The motivation is you've got the opportunity to close this out (tonight) and you know this is a good team," said McMillan. "You can't give up any game. If you allow them to come in here and take the fifth game, they go back to their place and anything can happen, so you come out and try to win this game."
Even as the series reaches its later stages, the Sonics still worked on slight adjustments for Game 5 during Monday's practice, which lasted nearly two hours.
"You will be making some adjustments and maybe changing a few things, how you want to get into a few of your sets and what you think they'll do to counter what you did in Game 4," explained McMillan.
Collison Takes Charge
Sonics rookie 
Nick Collison helped key the Sonics Game 4 victory by taking three charges in the fourth quarter of the game. After Collison's first drawn charge, an Allen three-pointer put Seattle ahead for good. McMillan isn't sure whether his team would have won without the charges.
"Who knows?" McMillan said. "But they came at the right time. It's the fourth quarter, you need stops, the game is close. I think that really frustrates the offense and it gives your team confidence and momentum. Those are momentum plays."
Center 
Jerome James gave credit to Collison's intelligence.
"Nick, he anticipates plays to the point where he makes them foul him by being in the right position," said James.
"All night long, all I could do was thank Nick and congratulate him for having my back. That really gives you confidence to play aggressive defense."
One of the three charges Collison took was against Brad Miller, who Collison switched onto after James had switched to defend a pick-and-roll.
"If I can anticipate a play, it's a fun thing for me to do," said Collison. "It's a turnover and a foul and for guys who like to play defense, that's their glamour play, if there is one."
McMillan looked to put an end to the back-and-forth discourse on refereeing between the two teams over the last couple of days.
"I did have some comments and Coach (Rick) Adelman made some comments," said McMillan. "It's over now."
Game 4 Gallery