Seven Seconds or Less

by Jack McCallum

  Shortly after that, Bennett Salvatore, the Suns’ old friend from the infamous Game 4 of the Lakers series, whistles Bell for a personal foul, and D’Antoni, convinced it was a charge on Nowitzki, leaps out of his seat to protest. Salvatore gives him a technical, and D’Antoni appears to be on his way after Salvatore when Iavaroni steps in front of him. As the lead assistant, Iavaroni considers it one of his duties to keep the head coach from getting ejected.

  But the lead only climbs after that as the Mavs have no answer for Barbosa, who makes ten of thirteen shots. His performance so excites Ivete Barbosa that her blood pressure shoots up and she has to leave her seat to receive oxygen. Bell comes down awkwardly at one point early in the fourth when he drives along the baseline, and the bench lets out a collective groan. D’Antoni immediately signals Nash to substitute for him, but, true to form, Bell draws an offensive foul on Stackhouse before leaving with nine points, four rebounds, three assists, and three drawn offensive fouls. The ovation is thunderous.

  At most, a nonsuperstar might have one big moment in the postseason. Bell has now had three: The flagrant foul on Bryant; the game-tying and series-saving three-pointer against the Clippers; and this throw-off-the-crutches return against the Mavs. The rage that Bell felt after the San Antonio game in early March seems like years ago.

  Late in the game, with the Suns leading by 94–71, D’Antoni walks down to Kurt Thomas at the end of the bench.

  “You want to try it, Kurt?” he says.

  “Sure,” says Thomas and checks in for the first time since February 22. Over the last two weeks there had been much speculation about Thomas’s return, but, in truth, D’Antoni hasn’t much considered it. All along, he saw Thomas as being more valuable in the Finals (against either the Heat or the Pistons, both of whom have big, physical centers) than he did against Dallas. And in any case he worried that Thomas would slow down the offense. But the cushion presents an excellent chance to at least give Thomas a look. Thomas looks rusty, picking up two quick fouls in his brief time.

  The final is 106–86. Marion grabs a spray can of black paint and draws an X across the 10 that appears on the courtside numbers, indicating the Suns’ tenth playoff victory. The last number all the way to the right is 16, which is how many playoff wins the champion will have when it’s all over.

  Barbosa finishes with twenty-four points but does not stick around to share his thoughts with the media—he has gotten the word about Mama and leaves immediately after showering. Nash and Diaw finish with twenty-one and twenty, respectively. But the most telling stat is what Nowitzki didn’t do: He made only three shots and scored just eleven points.

  Back in the locker room, where the mood is upbeat but not insanely joyous—everyone knows that a Game 5 in Dallas less than forty-eight hours away will probably decide the series—I ask Kurt Thomas if he saw the fan who was wearing his number 40 jersey.

  “I didn’t see it,” says Thomas. “I wonder why someone would even bring it.”

  It’s a shame for the Suns that Thomas got hurt and hasn’t been a factor in the playoffs. His no-nonsense professionalism would’ve helped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  [The Second Season]

  May 31………………………

  SERIES TIED 2–2

  “We just got discombobulated in the fourth quarter.”

  Robert Sarver’s morning begins with a phone call from Jerry Colangelo, who had heard Sarver’s response to a question asked him by Dan Bickley on the columnist’s radio show on KGME.

  “If you guys win the title,” Bickley asked, “should Bryan Colangelo get a ring?”

  Sarver answered, “I don’t think so.”

  Colangelo thought it was a classless comment and told Sarver so. Sarver didn’t apologize or amend his opinion, but he did say that he was caught off-guard by the question and might’ve responded differently had he had time to think about it.

  Both of them are present at the arena this afternoon as Janet Napolitano, the governor of Arizona, presides over a pep rally declaring “Phoenix Suns Week.” All you need to know about the stylistic change at the top of the franchise is a split-screen visual of Colangelo and Sarver. Colangelo is dressed, as he almost always is in public, in blue blazer and conservative tie. He looks like he’s going to a Rotary fund-raiser. Sarver is wearing a casual white shirt and a pair of black jeans with a small rip in one of the legs. He looks like he’s going to catch folk night at Hava Java.

  “I got caught without a change of clothes,” says Sarver, who travels between Phoenix and San Diego (where he lives) by private plane. “I decided at the last minute to go to Dallas, and this is all I have.” Jerry Colangelo, see, doesn’t get caught.

  The Suns coaches crowd onto the stage; it’s one of those frozen-smile occasions, but, since Napolitano is a card-carrying Democrat, D’Antoni, Iavaroni, and Gentry are reasonably glad to be there. (For the record, Colangelo is a registered Republican, but he likes Napolitano, too.) Gradually, some of the players show up, in an order prescribed by their status or personal inclination for punctuality. Pat Burke, the injured Dijon Thompson, Tskitishvili, and Kurt Thomas arrive first. Then, surprisingly, Eddie House. Nash, Barbosa, James Jones, Bell, and Stoudemire beg off—“getting treatment” is a legit excuse—and Tim Thomas and Shawn Marion stroll in a little late, while the governor is speaking. Thomas, in fact, starts to sit in her seat but is quickly shooed away.

  Governor Napolitano declares the Suns “an Arizona treasure,” suggests they are going to thump the Mavericks in Dallas, and that’s pretty much it.

  “I’ve been around for Suns Days, Suns Weeks, and Suns Months,” says Colangelo. “If we can win this whole thing, all that remains is Suns Millennium.”

  June 1

  GAME 5 TONIGHT

  Phoenix is clearly the media darling of this matchup. D’Antoni answers every question with a smile. Buttonhole a Suns’ assistant and you’ll get a friendly quip. Nash sometimes looks as if he’s staring into a firing squad when he’s put in front of a large press gathering (a “cattle call” as it’s sometimes called, or a “clusterfuck” as the media knows it), but he always makes himself available and always until the last question is asked and answered. Same for Marion, Bell, Diaw, whoever.

  The Mavs’ shootaround, by contrast, is grim. Obviously, it has something to do with their loss in Game 4, but, to the press, Dallas unquestionably wears the blacker hat. The Mavericks are not an unpopular team; it’s just that the Suns are so much more popular.

  “Dirk left without talking to the media today,” I tell Nash.

  “He’s like that when he’s happy, too,” says Nash of his buddy.

  In many ways, the respective personalities of the team leaders, form the overall team personality. Early in the postseason, Dallas’s Nowitzki made the drastic public relations misstep of revealing that, on occasion, he hums a David Hasselhoff tune (“Looking for Freedom,” which had been popular in Nowitzki’s native Germany when he was growing up) to relax himself at the free-throw line. He might as well have said: I dig Barry Manilow. Both at home and on the road, Nowitzki was subsequently greeted by Hasselhoff masks, Hasselhoff cheers, and, most frighteningly, Hasselhoff—never one to miss capitalizing on a public relations opportunity, the former Baywatch beef-cake showed up in Dallas for Game 2.

  Dirk’s good buddy, meanwhile, was getting immortalized by Nelly Furtado, a certified out-of-

  the-mainstream singer/songwriter, a Canadian herself and cute to boot. In “Promiscuous,” Furtado sings: “Is that the truth or are you talkin’ trash/Is your game MVP like Steve Nash?” So, while the Mavs were defined by the musical tastes of a clueless Teuton, the Suns, through Nash, had cornered the market on indie legitimacy. Nash feels bad that his buddy is getting Hassel-trashed. But not that bad.

  At the end of shootaround, I jokingly ask Tim Thomas if he can make another full-court shot, and soon a half dozen players are launching balls at the distant basket, most of them sailing wide right, landin
g in the seats with a loud crash or narrowly missing various TV technicians and maintenance personnel who are setting up for tonight’s game.

  “Let’s get out of here before we kill someone,” says D’Antoni with a trace of exasperation.

  Eddie House decides to try one more shot, aiming for the water cooler at the extreme left side of the basket, having determined that the “motherfuckin’ air current” will carry it right. It swishes.

  “We need a ninety-four-footer tonight,” says Dan D’Antoni, “we know who to go to.”

  As I munch on a sandwich at lunch, Robert Sarver suddenly looks over and says, “Do you mind if I do something with your eyebrows?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re too thick,” he tells me. “Kind of frightening. We could go to the salon at the hotel and get it done. I’ll pay.”

  The coaches are cracking up but apparently he’s not kidding. “I’m busy this afternoon,” I say, “but maybe, if there’s a Game 7 back here, we can do it then.”

  The challenge for D’Antoni is to decide how much emphasis should be put on the game in his remarks. Everyone knows that, in a deadlocked seven-game series, Game 5 is the fulcrum. Call it a must win and get them all charged up? Or take the casual one-play-one-game-at-a-time approach? D’Antoni goes back and forth. He never plans his pregame remarks and what tumbles out is pretty much off the cuff.

  “All right, guys, tonight is a matter of remembering this is Game 5,” he says. “If there’s eighty possessions, then we have to play eighty possessions. It’s a matter of being active, it’s a mind-set, that the most important thing going on for these two hours is knowing we’re going to bust their ass.

  “We have to treat it like a Game 7. We gotta go in and get at their ass. Energy and commitment on every play. Keep your mind on this fact—that Game 5 might be the most important game of your careers.

  “We have only one player who’s been in the finals—Raja. [Bell makes a small bow and a couple players bow back.] But this is the game we gotta get.” Then he suddenly realizes that he shouldn’t treat it as an absolute must-win. “Now, we also got Games 6 and 7, too. But try to get in your mind that these next three games, particularly this one, could set your whole life up. All right, Noel, whatta you got?”

  As they quietly watch the menu of dunks, fast breaks, and three-pointers, D’Antoni says a version of what he’s been saying since training camp: “They got no answer if we run.”

  The first quarter goes horribly for the Suns, but they make their move in the second behind Tim Thomas, who comes off down screens, finds his way to the perimeter, and gets good looks. The Mavericks are so intent on double-and triple-teaming Nash that they are willing to leave anyone else wide open. Near the end of the half, Thomas and Nowitzki get in each other’s face and a double technical is called. Thomas looks at Nowitzki, puckers his lips, and blows him an air kiss. Thomas gives the Suns some attitude but, as with his facial hand-wave, the gesture carries the air of a taunt. It’s not all-out punk, but it’s punkish.

  Dallas leads 58–55 at halftime, but, in contrast to the “bad leads” the Suns had in Games 2, 3, and 4, this is a “good deficit.”

  “It’s ours,” whispers Todd Quinter as he goes into the dressing room. “I can feel it.”

  Almost everyone, it seems, feels the same way. The coaches are a little concerned with Diaw, who has missed seven of his ten field goal attempts—“He’s shot two air balls,” says Iavaroni, “and he’s a little screwed up right now”—but, other than that, the sense of confidence is palpable, particularly in Thomas. His now-he’s-here-now-he’s-gone ride through the postseason continues. There are games when he simply disappears, fails to get himself open, and ignores the boards. Then there are games when you can’t imagine the Suns winning without him. He is almost as important as Nash. Tonight is one of those games. He finished the half with fourteen points, missing only one shot, and has hit all of his three three-pointers. No matter that his man, Nowitzki, has seventeen points. That is to be expected. The Suns can weather that. What they must do is continue to attack the Mavs offensively.

  “I’m thinking that Howard on you, Tim, which he has been, I haven’t seen him play defense in the post,” says D’Antoni. “He just reaches and grabs. I think we can exploit that.

  “Now, also, offensively—and, Steve, you tell me what you think—but we gotta put wood on these guys. [He means set hard screens; that is an area where Kurt Thomas is missed because Marion and Tim Thomas set weak screens.] We can’t have a guy trailing the play because Steve can’t see behind him. Steve has to have that assurance that we busted the guy who’s tailing him.

  “All right, anybody got anything?”

  Nash does—his now familiar refrain: “We gotta be real tough at the beginning. We get these guys early in the third, they’re gonna fade. Let’s get out there and get ready to go.”

  For the Suns, a dream scenario unfolds almost immediately. Two minutes into the third period, Josh Howard collects his third foul, then almost immediately gets his fourth, and Avery Johnson sends him to the bench. That leaves them with either the smaller Jerry Stackhouse or the slow-footed Nowitzki on Thomas, and Thomas is feeling his touch. He makes a three-point shot, drives in for a dunk, draws a foul, and completes a three-point play. Then he hits two more threes in quick succession. Suddenly, the Suns lead 77–70 with 3:27 left in the third quarter. Suddenly, the whole complexion of the series has changed. Suddenly, the Suns are in charge. The obnoxious American Airlines Center P.A. announcer, “Humble” Bill Hayes as he calls himself, tries to get the crowd into it, but they are shocked. The Mavs, back on their heels, call time-out.

  On their bench, the Suns seem to be celebrating a little too wildly, and Nash and the coaches try to calm them down. The Mavericks storm out of their huddle, intent on turning the game around.

  Nowitzki draws a foul and makes both free throws. Devin Harris, relatively quiet since the first game, converts a three-point play. Before D’Antoni can call a time-out, Nowitzki makes an eighteen-foot jump shot and the score is tied 77–77. Nowitzki makes another three-pointer and another jump shot before the end of the period, and now the Mavs seem in control 82–81.

  Three minutes into the fourth period, Bell’s reputation gets him again. Referee Kenny Mauer, a coconspirator from the infamous Game 4 of the Lakers series, calls a foul on Bell, then, after the play is over, he detects Bell pushing off on Josh Howard and adds on a technical. D’Antoni explodes off the bench, and Maurer T’s him up, too. D’Antoni throws his clipboard onto the floor, shattering it.

  Whatever else was going through Bell’s mind, he is clearly frustrated by his inability to move freely because of his calf. He had pulled off one minor miracle with his return in Game 4, but, as the medical staff expected, the injury isn’t going to get better with strenuous use; it’s going to get worse. Also, the Suns had by this point detected on game film several instances when they believed that Howard was deliberately tripping them. Howard got under Bell’s skin, and D’Antoni exacerbated the situation by losing control.

  Nowitzki makes both technicals, then converts a jump shot, and, suddenly, a one-point Dallas lead is a five-point lead, 93–88. Barbosa makes a jump shot to cut it to three, but the Suns, clearly shaken, get no closer than that. Whether or not it is his fault, Thomas does one of his disappearing acts and doesn’t score in the fourth quarter, takes only one shot, in fact. The Suns panic on offense and rush their shots. When Barbosa misses a floater in the lane, Dan D’Antoni says, “In November, you can take that shot, but in June you can’t.”

  Nowitzki, meanwhile, doesn’t miss down the stretch and scores twenty-two points in the fourth period alone to finish with an even fifty. Whatever message Thomas was sending with his air kiss, it served only to motivate Nowitzki. As in the previous series, when the home fans chanted for Kobe Bryant and Elton Brand, Nash had to endure the chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P!” for Nowitzki. They were intended not only as support for their own player but also
as a commentary on the selection of Nash. Avery Johnson gets the luxury of taking out Nowitzki with 1:12 remaining, and the ovation lasts for almost a minute.

  The final is 117–101. From the point that Bell and D’Antoni got their technicals, the Suns were outscored 28–13. The stretch run, which so often belongs to Phoenix, was all Dallas. It is an excruciating loss that puts the Suns down 3–2 in the series.

  “It’s not gonna matter,” says Gentry as the Suns enter the locker room, “because we’re gonna bust their ass the next two games.” But it sounds hollow. This was opportunity squandered.

  “All right, we had a shot at them,” says D’Antoni to the team. “We didn’t get it done tonight, but we will get it done on Saturday. All right? Everybody cool?” They come together enthusiastically, but, on this night, no one says anything else after the coach, not even Nash.

  Back in the coaches room, the replay is on. D’Antoni looks surprised when they show a replay of the two technicals.

  “The score was 88–89 then?” he says. “We were only down one?” The realization hits him like a punch. If Bell hadn’t gotten called for the T and if he hadn’t added to it with his own technical…

  “That’s where the game went,” says Weber, “right there.”

  For a change, Marion put it best: “We just got discombobulated in the fourth quarter,” he says.

  On his way out of the arena, Sarver confronts Terdema Ussery, the Mavericks’ president and CEO. Before Game 4 in Phoenix, Cassandra Johnson, Avery Johnson’s wife, had gotten involved in a heated exchange with two Suns fans. Owner Mark Cuban and little-used Maverick reserve center DJ Mbenga both went up to investigate, the latter unthinkingly since it earned him an automatic league suspension. Sarver still isn’t sure what happened in Phoenix, but he tells Ussery that, with all the provocative video that plays on the scoreboard in Dallas, the Mavericks have no justification to complain.