A day after angrily berating his Seattle SuperSonics, coach Nate McMillan tried pushing a softer set of buttons to get though to his inconsistent team.

There is no better example of the Jekyll-and-Hyde Sonics than their two-day trip to Los Angeles, which brought a 104-93 victory over the Lakers on Tuesday and a 114-94 crushing by the Clippers on Wednesday.

Immediately after the latest embarrassment, McMillan pointed an angry finger at his players. Later, he looked at himself.

"(Wednesday) night I did say some things to them in the locker room and maybe to the media that I thought about this morning," McMillan said Thursday. "Maybe the getting on these guys and the constant criticizing and pushing them - I can't keep doing it. I told them, 'I won't continue to yell and scream. You guys have to police each other when you have a game like that.'"

So far, these Sonics haven't policed themselves. No Seattle team has done that since the title contenders McMillan played with in the '90s. McMillan recalls those teams as coming ready to play whether the opponent was the Lakers or the Clippers.

But as that veteran core began giving way to younger players, the Sonics developed a tendency to play up or down to the level of the opposition.

With this set of players proving unable to police themselves, McMillan increasingly assumed the role of bad cop.

When the team rose for the Lakers and rolled over for the Clippers, it became apparent his hard approach hasn't solved the problem.

The team returned to Seattle about 2 a.m. Thursday. McMillan went to bed about 3:30, and he was up by 6 to take his son to school. In his few free waking minutes, he pondered new approaches.

"You don't sleep," he said. "This is your life. You always second-guess yourself. Especially in losses. You're always hitting yourself upside your head about what you can do better. Is there anything more you can do to add more to the team? Do you need to go in and be hard this morning, or do you allow these guys some room to just breathe?"

McMillan decided to let his team breathe. Players went through a light practice Thursday morning, lifting weights and shooting.

Part of that was necessity. Down to 10 healthy bodies, the Sonics are limited in what kind of practices they can conduct.

On Thursday, Vladimir Radmanovic was at the hospital getting X-rays for an ankle injury suffered against the Clippers. Desmond Mason shot jumpers while awaiting doctor's clearance to return to full practice. Big men Jerome James and Calvin Booth continued to nurse injuries.

So, the day after playing one of their worst games of the season, the Sonics reported to practice and found a calm coach who sent them through a light practice.

McMillan was asked if any of his players might take that as a sign that he has stopped trying to light a fire under them.

"I made that perfectly clear: I never give up," McMillan said. "I'll try to control my emotions, but everything comes from the heart with me. If I see some things that are not right, I will speak to them, and that's just the way I am."