Fabulous Does Not Fit Baker

The newest Seattle SuperSonic hasn’t been around for all of the annual dances with disaster that have been such a part of Seattle’s playoff history in the 1990s.

When you think about how the SuperSonics have bowed out in the past few years, you think about George Karl’s fretting, Gary Payton’s defiance, or Shawn Kemp scowling his way out of Seattle last spring.

Vin Baker is going through this for the first time, but already has the hang of it. Sunday afternoon he personified the state of the SuperSonics.

He slumped back in his locker after Seattle’s 112-100 loss to the Lakers, towel over his head, glazed look in his eyes.

He still wore his uniform. His right shoe was removed; that was as much progress as he had made. It was practically the only thing he had done since the first quarter, when he made five of 10 shots and pulled down five rebounds. For the rest of the game he had one basket and one rebound.

“I’m just playing terrible right now,” Baker said. “If I could get my act together for one night, we’ll have a better opportunity to win. Regardless of what they’re doing, on the offensive end I’m not helping my team in the least bit.

“If I hit half my shots and do something different on defense, we win this game. But I’m not doing anything to help my team. It’s a travesty not to play well.”

Baker seemed to have forgotten that he gave the SuperSonics 20 points and 12 rebounds Friday night and it wasn’t enough to help Seattle win. Nothing they do seems to be enough. They shot 50% Sunday, made eight of 13 three-point shots and kept pace with the Lakers on the boards all game long. Payton almost had a triple-double with 31 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds. Detlef Schrempf came through with 25 points.

Didn’t work. The Lakers simply have too much firepower.

Baker could have scored seven more points to reach his regular-season average of 19 and the SuperSonics would have lost by five.

Once again, what the SuperSonics do from November to April has no bearing on what they will do in May.

The SuperSonics have dropped three games in a row for the first time this season.

Now they’re behind, 3-1, in a playoff series for the first time since, oh, last year.

They face elimination for the first time since, gee, just over a week ago.

Yes, the SuperSonics have been here before. Plenty of times. Too often, in fact. In each of their past five series coming into this one they were in a position to lose it by dropping only one game. They won three of those series. In that span the SuperSonics are 9-2 when facing elimination.

But it’s starting to look as though all of that cumulative desperation is catching up to them. How much sleep have they lost over the years knowing that one loss would end their season--and possibly Karl’s tenure as their coach?

They’ve gone into emergency mode with too much regularity. When it was time to play with a sense of urgency Sunday, nothing happened.

“We kind of dropped our head with a couple of minutes left to play,” Schrempf said. “We didn’t have a lot of emotion the last few minutes of the ballgame.”

They were down by only eight points and had the ball with 90 seconds to play. Eight points. Indiana’s Reggie Miller has gone on 8-0 runs by himself in less than a minute.

The SuperSonics don’t have that in them. They scored only two points the rest of the game.

Now Seattle hopes KeyArena can make the difference that the SuperSonics obviously can’t provide themselves.

“I’m anxious to let our fans pick us up and get our confidence back,” Karl said.

That sounds a little bit desperate, and it also won’t erase the fact that the SuperSonics must win at the Forum to win this series.

Perhaps they want to comfort themselves in the little tidbit that of the six teams to come back from 3-1 deficits in the playoffs, two have accomplished it since 1995.

The Miami Heat did it to the New York Knicks last year. But that was aided by suspensions to key Knick players for leaving the bench during a scuffle.

Unless a point guard gets tossed into photographers’ row and the Lakers all run onto the court, Seattle won’t be joining the list.

Payton seemed to be isolated all day Sunday. He walked from the locker room back to the court by himself at halftime. He sat alone on the bench during a fourth-quarter timeout. And his superlative individual effort this series is being wasted because not enough other SuperSonic players have matched it by raising their games.

Payton was asked if he felt disappointed in the other players. He didn’t call them out.

“My teammates have always supported me,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’ll go down with them.”

Payton didn’t mention the option of going up.

The elevator door is open, but it’s only headed one way. The SuperSonics know the direction.