A snapshot of life on the road for the SuperSonics

Kevin Durant and the SuperSonics have won six road games this season. John W. McDonough/SI

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5 Ways to survive the road

5. Pack properly. "I had to wash all my clothes to make sure I had enough socks, boxers,'' said Luke Ridnour, a point guard of the Seattle SuperSonics. "That was the main thing I had to worry about.''

You did your own laundry?

"The wife took care of me,'' he said.

How long have you been married?

"Two years,'' he said.

That explains it, he was told. See if she's still doing your laundry 10 years from now.

The trip began March 1 when the Sonics departed from Seattle. Over 12 days, they would play seven games with stops in Minneapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Toronto, Indiana and Boston. The Sonics were sitting at their lockers Wednesday in TD Banknorth Garden less than six hours away from the final flight back home. They looked like they were waiting in a bus station.

"Two pairs of sweats and two hoodies,'' rookie forward Jeff Green said, detailing his packing list. "I brought a lot of sweaters and collared shirts, dress jeans and casual shoes.''

What about underwear? Did you bring enough for every day of the trip?

"Yeah,'' Green said, with a strange look. "You've got to stay clean on underwear.''

It was meant as a question of strategy. Why not pack light on the underwear and send out laundry midway through the trip?

"You never send out underwear on the road, because it comes back five sizes too small,'' said Steve Bulpett, the long-serving Celtics beat writer for the Boston Herald.

"You don't send out your underwear,'' agreed Sonics broadcaster Kevin Calabro. "Nobody wants to wash your underwear.''

4. Get out of the hotel room. "Actually, this trip feels even longer,'' forward Donyell Marshall said, "because we're living in a hotel in Seattle.''

He was referring to himself, center Francisco Elson and swingman Adrian Griffin, who had been dealt to the Sonics last month at the trade deadline. Therefore, they were living in hotels whether they were traveling with their new team or in Seattle, where they were being boarded at a hotel down the street from the Sonics' arena and practice facility.

"You look at these guys, at least they're going to back to an apartment or a house or whatever,'' Marshall said. "We're going back to a hotel. It's small, and you've got four big, huge bags right in the middle of the floor, and you're trying to navigate around that, and at nighttime you've got to go to the bathroom, the lights are all off and you're kicking the bags and stuff like that. That's probably the hardest part of the whole thing.''

Said Griffin: "During the day, you try to get your rest. But also you've got to do something to get out. Get to a movie, walk the malls, something. Something so it won't just seem like work, work, work. You've got to relax.''

After further consideration, the newcomers agreed that the hardest part was being away from their families. Griffin's wife and four young children drove from their suburban New York home to meet him in Philadelphia, where the team was given a day off midway through the trip. He rented a connecting room for the kids. The next day he said goodbye, knowing he probably won't see them again until the end of the season.

Marshall saw his family for two nights in Detroit after they had driven up from their home in Cleveland. He and his wife have six children aged 7 to 18, and in a few weeks they'll be visiting him in Seattle during their spring break from school. Marshall wasn't sure where he would take them when they come to Seattle.

"The funniest thing was I got sick as soon as I got traded out there,'' he said. "I was in bed the first four or five days in Seattle with a 102-degree temperature. People ask me, 'How is it in Seattle?' I haven't seen the city yet. By the time I was done being sick, we left; we went out on the road. So I haven't had a chance to do anything.''

3. Stay healthy. Everybody was talking about sleeping enough and eating properly. They would play a game, fly late at night, get up the next morning in a new city and practice that afternoon or play that night in a back-to-back. Their schedule since the All-Star break had them playing 14 games in 23 days, including this trip that was the longest for the franchise since 1983.

"We've got to talk [with the league office] when the year's out,'' coach P.J. Carlesimo said. "I think there must be a philosophy [held by the league] that we would prefer to do this. Because we don't have building issues for us to go out as long as we do.''

Carlesimo was referring to the extended trips taken by the Bulls and Spurs because their arenas are rented out to other events. The Sonics have no such conflicts.

"Maybe because we're so far away,'' Carlesimo said of the Sonics' distance from the East Coast, "the feeling is that this is a good thing. But it's just too long. Everbody's got some [bad trips], but ours aren't caused by our own building. So this is disappointing.''

2. Be sociable. "I went out and rented a bunch of movies,'' Ridnour said. "They're all overdue by now. But Blockbuster, they've got that [offer], you can't turn them in late. I got Beowulf, Mr. Woodcock, Rendition and ... what else did I get? Something else. And me and Nick [Collison] watched How I Met Your Mother, the TV show, so that passed the time too.''

During the stay in Detroit, Sonics assistant general manager Scott Perry -- a former executive with the Pistons -- invited the entire team to his house for dinner. In other cities, Carlesimo and his staff would go out for a meal whenever possible.

"Usually I go by myself,'' Green said of his dinner plans on the road. "Or I ask Kevin [Durant], but he normally does room service. Or I go with some of the old guys, like Donyell Marshall or maybe Damien [Wilkins] once in a while.''

"That's really how you get to know people,'' Marshall said. "If I'd come in [after the trade] and we'd had a two-week homestand, it probably would have been a bit more difficult. Being on the road, you're forced to hang with each other because that's all you have. I was able to get some time to talk to Jeff and talk to Kevin. I sat down and had talks with Nick. I always talk to Luke on the bench.

"It's been good to go on the road to be able to talk to those guys and know how they are. Because when I was in Cleveland I was a very vocal leader, and being here with these new guys, it's hard because you don't know how they are. You don't know which guys can take criticism and which guys can't. So this trip is probably a good thing because I've been learning a lot more [about his teammates].''

Such as?

"You can tell by the way they respond if P.J. says something to them,'' Marshall said. "Some of it you can just tell by conversation. You sit there, you really talk to them. You go up the first time and say, 'Kevin, that's not a good shot, you've got to take this or whatever ...'' And if he responds, 'You're right,' then that's how you know how to approach them. Or you can tell by a certain look they give you, like they're saying, 'You're not going to come in here new [and tell me what to do].' You can tell by certain looks you get.''

1. Compete. The young, rebuilding Sonics were 1-5 on the trip, 3-10 since the All-Star break and 16-48 overall this season as they awaited the game in Boston against the league's winningest team. The Sonics had won their road opener 10 days earlier at Minnesota 111-108 in overtime, and they'd lost tight games at Detroit and Indiana. There was no way of telling whether they would be competitive against the Celtics.

"My experience in coaching is whenever you show up and there's excitement in the arena and there's a full house, the players don't know the difference,'' Sonics assistant coach Paul Westhead said as he stood on the court during the pregame warmups. "They don't know that no one likes them or that it's all for the other team. It's just noise and excitement and it makes you play. But if you show up in a half-filled arena, it plays into you playing tired.''

"Excitement,'' fellow assistant Scott Brooks said, dribbling a basketball. "There's excitement.''

"I don't know what's going to happen,'' Westhead said. "We could lose by 40, we could win by two. But I would guess that they'll play with some excitement. That's my guess. But I've been wrong before.''

The Sonics proved him right early by taking a 19-17 lead. Then Boston tore off a 23-6 run, opened up a 37-point lead and won 111-82. The flight home was scheduled to leave as soon as possible afterward.

One month ago, Marshall had been living with his family in Cleveland and looking ahead to a potential return with LeBron James to the NBA Finals. Now he was a bit player on one of the league's worst teams, feeling out new relationships with teammates of college age and bracing for a redeye flight back to his hotel room in Seattle.

"The thing that ended up working out is with my 18-year-old,'' Marshall said. "She's a senior, and we were trying to plan her graduation party. The thing that was funny, when I was in Cleveland we had a chance to go to the championship [finals], so we didn't know if I was going to be home for graduation. Now we know. I guess that she was kind of happy about that.''

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