Frank Hughes of the News Tribune reports that the Sonics are in the middle of a tailspin. Failure to execute in the fouth quarter has led to three straight losses, but Hughes suggests that Nate McMillan?s new rotations may have something to do with the slump.

With Vitaly Potapenko?s return from the injured list and Kenny Anderson?s missing practice, McMiian has tightened up his rotation. While the players won?t say anything, it?s obvious that the new rotation has negatively affected the offense.

"I'm trying to find a balance," McMillan said. "Right now, most of our best guys are small ... and Vitaly has come in and given us some pretty good minutes ... so we've gone with that.I cut the rotation to keep a flow to our play so we are not seeing such a drop in the way or the style we play. Because right now our players and the guys who are coming in with that (second) unit, I'm finding there is not a flow just because of the ability of the players that we have."

Reading between the lines, McMillan is saying that neither Anderson nor Calvin Booth is playing well enough to merit playing time, despite contracts that pay Anderson $9.185 million this season, second highest on the team, and Booth $4.992 million, sixth highest.

McMillan says the lack of playing time for Booth and Anderson is not punishment for lackluster play. He insist he is playing the matchup game. "I'm looking at matchups," McMillan said. "What I'm dealing with is finding that balance that can give it to me on the offensive end and the defensive end."

His biggest problem is finding lineups that are balanced offensively and defensively. "You are trying to get both and some of our guys don't give us both. I have to be careful with substitutions and matchups because some matchups (are going to fail)."