Comic relief, fortuitously, is supplied when the coaches come to the third-quarter play where Diaw is knocked down and Brown stands over him. The play had brought coaches from both benches onto the court, and, at the side of the frame, here comes Phil Jackson, ambling into view, with his peculiar, pain-ridden, side-to-side gait.
“Look!” says Mike. “It’s the Penguin!”
Penguin sounds fill the room for the next minute. That and laughter, which is desperately needed.
Chapter Five
[The Second Season]
Los Angeles, April 29……………
“After I finished talking to Stu, I think my blood pressure hit three hundred.”
The Suns bus to practice at a middle school in Santa Monica, a facility frequently used by teams when they don’t want to make the long downtown drive to the Staples Center. No one would know that this is a team in crisis. None of the uncertainty about what to change and how to play and who to guard with whom comes up. D’Antoni gathers them around and says:
“This is something we talked about earlier. You lose one and you never think you’re going to win again; you win one, you never think you’re going to lose again. We do have to win three games, but we only have to do it one at a time. We can do that starting at 12:30 tomorrow. We win that game and all of a sudden we’re coming back with the edge.
“Okay, we lose this game, we go back to Phoenix and win a game, and, again, the pressure’s on them. We have to have the mind-set, one possession at a time, one game at a time. Don’t let the outside stuff, don’t let the papers, don’t let anything distract you.”
Snippets of the game are shown on the portable video system that Noel Gillespie lugs around on the road in a gigantic orange case. (It looks like something a magician would carry; everyone calls it “Noel’s Lady.”) The coaches had just spent an hour bemoaning the number of times that the Suns failed to make the extra pass or failed to get a better shot, but they choose only one to show—a play where Marion has both Bell and Barbosa wide-open but instead launches a three-pointer. D’Antoni says, “Be cognizant of the fact that there are times we can swing it.”
Practice is short and crisp. The media comes in, looking for a fresh angle on the Suns’ obituary that is almost ready to be written, but finds a loose team rather than a desperate one. It could’ve been the day before a meaningless game against the Charlotte Bobcats in December. Nash shoots alone at one basket while Dan D’Antoni bangs his ear. Phil Weber works with Diaw on his shooting, the Frenchman frowning every time the coach sends him to a new spot but eventually complying. Diaw likes to demand an extra shot when he gets started; instead of a “mulligan,” a word that does not exist in French, he calls it a “hooligan.” Kurt Thomas is playing a shooting game with Kevin Tucker, the Suns’ security man, who played college ball at Northern Arizona. A buzz has begun about the possibility of Thomas returning from his foot injury—everyone in the Suns’ camp would pay a week’s salary to have Thomas come in and bust Kwame Brown in the chops—but D’Antoni considers it a long shot. “I haven’t shot a ball in nine weeks,” says Thomas to Tucker, “and I still kicked your ass.”
Vinny Del Negro, the Suns’ radio analyst and a former NBA player, works with Barbosa on his shooting. Pat Burke and Nikoloz Tskitishvili, “Skita” to everyone, play a spirited one-on-one game. As the playoffs go on, and the likelihood of the eighth through twelfth players actually getting into a game decreases, the ferocity of the scrubs’ postpractice battles intensifies. Stoudemire, a pick sticking out from his hair, studies his BlackBerry and relates to James Jones the selections from the ongoing NFL draft.
Eddie House approaches D’Antoni. He isn’t sure he should do it, but the coach always seems open to suggestions.
“You know, the bench was a big part of what we did all season,” House tells him. “Don’t forget about us now.” In last night’s game, the top six—Nash, Marion, Diaw, Bell, Tim Thomas, and Barbosa—all played thirty or more minutes. Bell played forty-five. But James Jones got in for only eight minutes and House played for only five.
“I appreciate that, Eddie, I really do,” says Mike. “And I’m going to think about it. We’ll need you down the road. But I have a hard time playing you and Steve together because of how physical they are.” What he didn’t add was: We’re not cutting Steve’s minutes, and we’re worried about your ability to handle the ball under pressure.
Back in the winter months, House had been playing so well that he was an early candidate for the Sixth Man award. He was D’Antoni’s torch, instant offense off the bench. One game in particular, against the Denver Nuggets at home on December 2, sums up his contributions. He made five jumpers in a row to pull the Suns out of trouble. On one play the ball was barely in his hands before he got his quick 1-2 pitty-pat steps down and shot it in rhythm. It was the game-clinching three-pointer from the right wing, and, as the Nuggets called time-out to cool him off, House sat down, received high-fives all around, and said, “Fuck those motherfuckers.” That is classic Eddie House. Fuck those motherfuckers. On at least a half-dozen occasions, his bravado had carried the Suns in those early months; House and his teammates loved it when Noel Gillespie found the scouting report of an opposing team that said this about House: Won’t shoot it unless he has it in his hands.
But, now, with the playoff noose tightening, Eddie House is just another stray scrounging for scraps.
On the way out of the gym, Gentry sidles up to Boris and says, “Well, another day, another franc.” Stoudemire asks, “What’s that? Like a French dollar?” Diaw shakes his head as only the French can. “It is the other way around,” he tells Stoudemire. “The dollar is the French franc. The franc was around for five hundred years before the dollar.” Stoudemire considers this.
For D’Antoni, the real business of the day—and it is unpleasant business—is calling Stu Jackson, the NBA’s director of operations. Jackson, a former player, coach, and general manager, is charged with everything relating to the game itself. During the season, for all intents and purposes, that task boils down to handling team complaints about referees, meting out punishments to players and coaches for technical fouls and flagrant fouls, and—deep below the radar—fining officials for bad calls. While the league announces every dollar taken from a player or coach for bitching about the officials, referee fines are kept in-house.
Any fair-minded individual would have to concede that Jackson has a difficult job, akin to listening to the complaints about the czar from a mob of pissed-off peasants during the Russian Revolution. Jackson’s predecessor in the job, by the way, was Rod Thorn, a West Virginian who is now the general manager of the New Jersey Nets. Thorn is a basketball legend in the Mountain State. He followed Jerry West to the state university and was given West’s number 44. Four years after Thorn graduated, Mike D’Antoni, a six-foot-three-inch playmaking guard from the mining town of Mullens, was recruited with the understanding that he would wear 44 and continue the line. But D’Antoni opted to play at the state’s “other” university, Marshall, where brother Dan had forged a fine career. (West Virginia University recently retired 44 in West’s name only, which, as D’Antoni says, “The dumb asses should’ve done in the first place.”)
There is little personal bond between D’Antoni and Jackson, which is how it should be. The worst thing that could happen to Jackson would be the perception that he favors one team over another. On the other hand, the idea that Jackson is an impartial observer is ridiculous. Jackson works for the czar and lives in the palace. He’s the Big Chief of the Referees. Asking for judicial relief from Jackson is not unlike the Kafkaesque feeling a college student has when he appeals a suspension handed down by the administration, only to find that the appeals court is the same one that handed out the suspension. Anyway, officials’ calls are not reversible in board-rooms. Except for questions about a shot beating the clock, which the refs can review at courtside, calls are set in stone the moment a whistle is blown. The reason coaches and GMs call Ja
ckson to complain, beyond the fact that venting is good for the soul and the blood pressure, is to set the stage for the next game. Watch out for this. That is particularly important, obviously, during a protracted playoff series.
Earlier in the season, Jackson happened to be in Phoenix when the Suns lost an agonizing 103–101 game to the Minnesota Timberwolves—the Suns protested that a goaltend should’ve been called against Kevin Garnett in the final seconds. D’Antoni came into the office, kicked his chair (which sent the height adjustment lever flying), then whipped off his sport coat and heaved it against the wall. “The good news,” he said later, “was I managed to lay off the plasma TV.” The Suns protested to Jackson, who promised to review the play (though it wouldn’t do any good anyway). The next day Jackson came back with his verdict: “Had there been another half-turn on the ball before Garnett blocked it, it would’ve been a goaltend.” Alvin Gentry, who has impeccable comedic timing, said, “They also found a second shooter on the grassy knoll.”
D’Antoni places the call to Jackson in the early afternoon. He gets Jackson’s answering machine, but Jackson is good about returning calls. D’Antoni states his case:
—The game started badly when Luke Walton flagrantly fouled Tim Thomas, and Diaw was mistakenly called for a technical on the ensuing group grope around the basket. The Suns did nothing and received the same penalty as the Lakers.
—After being hit with a technical for throwing an elbow, Kwame Brown stood over Diaw and glared down at him, essentially putting his crotch over Diaw’s face. He should’ve been assessed another technical and ejected.
—Bryant walked right by referee Bill Spooner and put his jersey over his head to protest a call. That should’ve been a technical.
—And in a general sense, the Lakers, a much more physical team, are manhandling our players, on and off the ball. Yet, in last night’s game, Phoenix shot seventeen free throws and the Lakers shot twenty-three.
At five p.m. D’Antoni comes downstairs, bound for the annual media dinner hosted by public relations chief Julie Fie. No players attend, but D’Antoni has given his commitment. He wishes he hadn’t. He looks ashen and shaken. He has a half-smile plastered on his face, but it’s one of those dangerous, I-might-kill-somebody smiles. D’Antoni talks animatedly to his brother, then to Gentry. Then he comes over and explains what Jackson said when he called back.
“Stu said he looked at everything and, at the end of the day, he says he’s assessing Raja a flagrant-one [the lightest of the flagrant fouls] for a play that happened with four minutes to go in the third period,” he says.
“I don’t remember the play,” I say.
“A rebound gets tapped out, Raja turns and starts to run and Kwame Brown grabs him and holds him for a second, so Raja rips his hand away and his hand hits Kwame in the mouth. That’s it. I had to look for the play myself.”
“Why would that be a flagrant-one?”
“Stu said that it’s the kind of thing that escalates into a fight. He said he even talked to David Stern [the commissioner] about it. He said Raja and Kwame became ‘intertwined.’ I pointed out that Kwame grabbed him, and that’s not the real definition of ‘intertwined.’
“Then I went back to the first play and said, ‘You’re telling me that what Raja did, reacting to a foul that should’ve been called, is more dangerous than Kobe pushing Boris into the fray?’ Stu says, ‘I understand that one. We’re rescinding the technical on Boris. [Meaning Diaw will not have to pay $1,000, or whatever that is in francs, the standard technical-foul fine.]’
“So let me get this straight. Luke Walton tackles our guy. Kwame Brown elbows a guy, then puts his crotch over somebody’s face. Kobe Bryant lifts his jersey over his head. And I’m walking into my locker room tomorrow and telling my guys that, after all that, they get one technical and one flagrant, and we get one flagrant and three technicals. That’s what you got for me? Because I’ll tell you right now what the player reaction will be: We’re getting screwed. I just want to make sure you’re okay with your decision.”
D’Antoni says Jackson told him: “I understand you’re upset. But that’s the decision.”
Jackson has his own interpretation of all this, of course. Luke Walton committed a flagrant foul and it was called. Somebody went sprawling in a pack, and the ref did the best job he could to determine who was guilty of a technical; the technical itself cannot be rescinded but the attached fine has been. Not calling technicals on Brown and Bryant are judgment calls. Hitting Bell with a flagrant-one stops a potentially explosive situation; Bell had been previously warned not to be an aggressor. And as for the free-throw discrepancy, well, the refs are calling them the way they see them. Lots of times—maybe even most times—the more aggressive team will get to the foul line more often. There you have it.
The Lakers would have their own interpretation of all this, too: The Suns are whining, and we have them in our hip pocket.
D’Antoni attends the media dinner, almost in a daze. “After I finished talking to Stu,” he says, “I think my blood pressure hit three hundred.” I urge him to have a glass of red wine instead of his usual Diet Coke. He relates the story of the Jackson phone call to Sarver and Del Negro. He has another glass of wine and a good meal. By the time he takes a cab back to the hotel, he says that, while he hasn’t forgotten the spirit-sapping phone call, he is now focused on tomorrow’s game.
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” he says.
“Thomas Paine,” I say.
“No,” says D’Antoni. “I’m pretty sure it’s Phil Jackson.”
Chapter Six
[The Second Season]
Los Angeles, April 30……………
LAKERS LEAD SERIES 2–1
“We better have enough edge that it doesn’t come down to one shot and number 8 has the ball in his hands.”
The quiet of the pregame locker room is spoiled by a cameraman who, while taking a close-up of Eddie House, trips over a bench and falls. “It’s NBA-TV, ladies and gentleman,” intones Pat Burke. “We’re bringing you a live shot of Eddie House’s balls.”
Burke, a communications major at Auburn, is a very funny guy, though he’s gotten a little less humorous and a lot more bitter with the disappearance of his playing time as the season has gone on.
Robert Sarver enters. He is fired up, more fired up, it seems, than the handful of players who are quietly getting dressed.
“Fuck L.A.,” he announces. “Fuck Kobe. Fuck these fans. Fuck the refs. Fuck everything. We beat these guys like a drum three times during the season. Let’s go out there and kick fucking ass.”
A few players murmur assent. Kurt Thomas is talking to his girlfriend on a cellphone. Who was that? she asks.
“Oh, that was our owner,” answers Thomas.
Before the game, Paul Coro, the Suns’ beat reporter for the Arizona Republic, asks Bell for his reaction to the added flagrant 1 he had received from the league office on the play that few people remember.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Bell.
D’Antoni had decided not to inform Bell until after the game but forgot to mention that to Coro. Bell shrugs it off. “Guess that mean’s they’re still watching me,” he says.
Iavaroni gathers the bigs together for their meeting. He believes it’s the most important meeting of the year, a Game 4 on the enemy court with your team down.
“I wanna tell you a story,” he begins. “I don’t do it much. It’s my first preseason game as a rookie with the 76ers. Nineteen eighty-three. We’re playing the Celtics. I’m guarding Larry Bird. I get it inside, turn, and he fouls me. So Bird says to Dennis Johnson, “We got us a bitch here.” I turn to D.J. and say, ‘Can’t he play this bitch without fouling?’
“Well, I got into Bird’s head. I could see it and I could hear it. He did nothing but talk the rest of the half, trying to get back at me. And he didn’t do that well. But in the second half he just comes out and plays. Somebody tells me later
that he scored the first twenty points of the half himself.
“Moral of the story? He was best when he was all business. He wasn’t talking. He was concentrating his energies on playing. That’s what we have to do today. Take care of business.”
Iavaroni calls on Kurt Thomas, as he often does in the bigs meeting. (When Thomas played for Dallas in the 1997–98 season, Don Nelson made him an assistant coach during the time he was injured.) “Kurt,” says Iavaroni, “you’re one of the best, if not the best, post defender I ever saw. Tell us some of the things you kept in your mind when you think about playing a guy one-on-one.”
“Stay low,” answers Thomas. “Stay centered. Keep your balance. And you have to hit him first once in a while. Don’t be afraid to throw in a cheap shot. Hit him with an elbow. Let him know you’re there.”
That might’ve been more information than Iavaroni was looking for. But he moves on. “Kwame Brown,” says Iavaroni, “is just a big fucking guy who doesn’t move much. But you have to adapt to play him. It’s origin of the species. Anyone ever hear of a guy named Charles Darwin? You gotta adapt.”
D’Antoni is normally a strategist in the general sense. The Suns don’t have a lot of set plays, but they do have that philosophy of keeping the ball moving, so he generally just reminds them to use every offensive weapon at their disposal. But tonight he drifts toward the mind game.
“Every possession play with your heart and your mind,” he says. “Ignore the refs. Don’t let them get into your head. It falls on us. It’s not about them. It’s not about the Lakers. It’s about us. It’s about whether we can get it done.”
Out on the court, meanwhile, Sarver is putting his fuck-L.A. mind-set into action. He sidles up to Norman Pattiz, the founder of the Westwood One Radio Network and one of those irritating Laker superfans who sit near the bench and scream at any opposing player who happens by that area. Sarver says to him, “You ever touch one of my players again, you’ll have me to deal with.” Sarver thought he had noticed Pattiz getting into the face of Tim Thomas during Game 3.
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