SEATTLE -- With one not-that-impressive victory to their credit, the Seattle SuperSonics are already looking forward to a winner-take-all Game 5 in Salt Lake.
"It's going to be hell going back to Utah," said Sonics forward Ruben Patterson after Monday's practice. "Their crowd is going to be pumped."Game 4? They'll play that one, too, on Wednesday at Key Arena (7 p.m. MDT), but only as a warm-up for the Friday finale.
"We have confidence we can beat Utah," Patterson said. "If we play like we played Saturday, we can win the series."
Sonics guard Gary Payton, who sounded anything but certain about the ability of his teammates to put things together just a few days ago, is suddenly exuding confidence.
"We knew if we executed like we're supposed to we could beat them," he said.
Forward Vin Baker agreed the Sonics' execution was the key to victory.
"We executed our game plan to a T," he said. "We did everything we went over in practice."
So, after one game, the majority of Sonics have decided the kinks in their game are worked out and they're ready for a long playoff run. Former Jazz center Greg Foster was the only Sonic player who wasn't that impressed with Saturday's Game 3 win.
"They (the Jazz) didn't play a great ball game, but we didn't either," he said.
Foster's analysis is probably the most accurate. The Sonics played with a lot more energy in winning Game 3, and their defense was improved, but they weren't exactly clicking on offense. On their homecourt, they shot a paltry 41 percent. They came into the game wanting to run the ball, but they generated just 11 points on fast breaks, fewer than they'd totaled in Game 2.
Coach Paul Westphal also wasn't ready to declare the Sonics a model of perfection yet.
"We blew four or five fast breaks where we had numbers," he said, as one example. "We were far from perfect."
Still, the cockiness of Payton and Patterson was a lot more representative of Seattle's overall confidence than the more practical evaluations of Foster and Westphal. The Sonics clearly are feeling a lot less pressure now that they trail in this series a mere 2-1. Their practice demeanor was a good indication of that. Last week's workouts were intense, all-business affairs, with players bumping and cussing and even getting after the pseudo-refs on hand for scrimmages. But Monday's practice was markedly looser, as players even joked with media -- last week's designated enemy -- as they cruised up and down court.
While the Sonics appear more relaxed now, however, the scars from the beating they took from local media clearly haven't healed. Several times Monday, players -- and Westphal -- bristled when mention was made of their recent turmoil.
When a reporter asked guard Brent Barry how he felt about being the odd man out when the Sonics went to their Patterson-Rashard Lewis combination, Barry curtly said, "No more controversies. We've had enough of that."
Asked more specifically about whether the team had resolved its differences, Barry said, "I'm just here to play basketball. The people who are out there wasting the ink and the fish wrap, they can do what they do."
Westphal was asked if he'd like to explain his postgame surliness Saturday, and he responded, "Was I surly?" (Long pause.) "Nah."
The coach also expressed impatience with a question about Payton's role, which was a hot topic last week.
"That was blown out of proportion to such an incredible extent," he said. "I don't even want to talk about it anymore."
Westphal expressed amusement at the way fans and media tend to react to every postseason win or loss as if it were something monumental.
"Every game gets overemphasized in the playoffs," he observed. "If you win, they project a championship. If you lose, they call it a disaster. No game is critical until one team is eliminated."
And if you ask the Sonics, they don't think that's going to happen before Friday.
You can reach Rich Evans by e-mail at rich@desnews.com