Seattle currently trails Minnesota by four games in the Western Conference standings, but when you're in ninth place in a conference where only the top eight proceed wins mean everything.

For this reason, Danny O'Neil of the Seattle Post-Intelligicer Reporter states, that tonight's battle with their fellow playoff hopefuls holds even more value.

"We have to catch more than just Minnesota," states Sonics forward Rashard Lewis. "I don't want to be one of those teams that's going to be in the eighth spot and come down to the end where we have to win or we're not in the playoffs."

With 43 games remaining in the Sonics schedule this one game is hardly do or die. The team, however, only looks to the next few games at any one time in an effort to break the long 82-game schedule into bite-size chunks.

"That's how I've always done it," Anderson said. "Until the second half of the season, when it gets to crunch time, then you start looking at the standings."

"I don't think you want to put pressure on these guys that it is a must-win game," McMillan said. "But it is a (conference) game, and this is a team that we're close to and could be in the race with at the end."

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