Seattle Slips Past Clippers : Pro basketball: Traffic tie-up almost leaves SuperSonics short of players before lethargic 108-101 victory.

Friday the 13th almost turned into a disaster for the Seattle SuperSonics.

The SuperSonics didn’t get in a full warm-up before Friday night’s 108-101 victory over the Clippers at the Tacoma Dome because most of the players, who live in Seattle, were caught in a massive pregame traffic jam caused by a fatal accident on Interstate 5, the main route between Seattle and Tacoma, where the SuperSonics are playing this season while the Seattle Center Coliseum is being rebuilt.

Only six SuperSonics, two short of the NBA rules for a full team, were at the Tacoma Dome 30 minutes before tip-off. However, guard Gary Payton and Dontonio Wingfield arrived at 6:30, giving Seattle enough players.

Shawn Kemp was the last player to arrive at 6:46.

“I left at 4 o’clock,” Kemp said. “It was terrible.”

The SuperSonics looked terrible for most of the first half, falling behind by eight points as the Clippers shot a season-high 61%.

However, the Clippers, the NBA’s worst shooting club (42.8%), reverted to form in the second half, shooting 37% en route to losing their fourth consecutive game before a crowd of 13,836.

“Any time you’re not able to get your warm-ups, it’s going to affect your game, and we missed a lot of easy shots tonight,” said guard Kendall Gill, who had 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists. “I don’t know if we were stiff and just not in the flow, Luckily it was the Clippers and not someone like Phoenix.”

Forward Detlef Schrempf had 23 points and 11 rebounds and Kemp got 19 points and 14 rebounds as Seattle won its 14th consecutive home game. Payton added 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Gill, who missed practice Sunday and was held out of the starting lineup for the SuperSonics’ victory over the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday, was worried that he would be the last player to arrive.

Gill has feuded with Coach George Karl and the SuperSonics, and his agent, Arn Tellem, has requested a trade.

“Because of the accident on I-5 a lot of us were running late,” Gill said. “I called ahead and told them I was going to be running late because that’s the last thing I need right now. I was thinking to myself in the car, ‘Please don’t let me be the last one in there.’ So when I got there and found that Shawn wasn’t there yet, I knew it was all right.”

Schrempf said the stress of sitting in traffic was draining.

“Some of the guys were late and the crowd was late, there was nobody in the stands,” Schrempf said. “It was just set up to be a slow, low-energy type of game and that’s the way it was.”

Clipper rookie Lamond Murray, who hit seven of eight shots and scored 18 points in the first half, missed five of eight shots in the second half en route to 24 points.

Guard Terry Dehere, who made six of eight shots and scored 12 first-half points, missed all five shots he took in the second half and finished with 12 points.

Although the Clippers have lost 13 of their last 16 games, Coach Bill Fitch didn’t fault his club.

“They’re playing pretty damn good, they’re playing real good, but we want to play better,” Fitch said. “I give them a lot of credit. We’re playing better on the road than some of the good teams.”