Seven Seconds or Less

by Jack McCallum

  May 28

  Marc Iavaroni has written on the board in the coaches office: “Change schemes when nauceous.” What does that mean? I ask.

  “It means we change up our coverage when Mike gets sick of something,” he says, “which in Game 2 took about one play.”

  I point out that nauseous is spelled wrong. “That’s the first mistake I’ve seen on your board all year,” I tell him. “Stan Van Gundy may give good board, but I’m guessing he doesn’t spell as well as you.”

  The only major strategic change for Game 3 is that Marion will start on Josh Howard. D’Antoni almost never uses statistics to make a point, but he tells Marion before the game: “When Howard scores over twenty points, they’re undefeated.” Marion nods. He has already heard the stat from a dozen different sources. Iavaroni also reminds Marion: “We gotta have five players and be below the ball. Shawn, you have to be in on this.” It’s easy to sense that Marion believes he is being singled out for criticism that should be going to the whole team.

  Right before the Suns trot out, Nash stops into the coaches’ office and says to D’Antoni: “Maybe once in a while if I screen for Boris, instead of the other way around, it would be a different look.”

  “Good idea,” says D’Antoni.

  Nash is looking for something—anything—that will break down a Dallas defense that, for him, seemed nearly impenetrable in the second half of Game 2.

  This one couldn’t begin worse for Phoenix. Seven seconds into the game, Ed Rush, the ref who mistakenly called the technical on Diaw in Game 3 of the Laker series, overrules an out-of-bounds call and instead whistles Barbosa for a personal. D’Antoni goes absolutely ballistic. He hates ominous starts. Diaw continues to play well in the middle, and, when Nash and Tim Thomas heat up in the second period, the Suns grab a 52–47 halftime lead.

  But while the same halftime score seemed hopeful in Game 2, it now seems shaky. It’s a “bad lead.” Too much stop-and-start-and-stop on offense. Too much standing around and not enough cutting to the basket. (Phoenix had just one first-quarter assist.) Too many squandered opportunities against a Dallas team that shot only 40 percent from the field. Too many times when a seemingly golden fast-break opportunity evaporates because not enough Suns ran downcourt. And the onus falls, again, on Marion.

  “Shawn’s gotta go to the hoop and dunk it!” Those are the words not of a coach but of Robert Sarver, who stops in the coaches office, plops down on the couch, and rips up his score sheet in anger.

  There is a downcast feeling among the players, too. The Mavs have been mediocre in their execution, at best, yet still trail by only five in a game that the Suns desperately need to win. Plus, Dallas is clearly the aggressor. Josh Howard’s flagrant foul on Tim Thomas in the second quarter should’ve fired up the Suns to retaliate in some small way, but they didn’t. As was the case early in the Laker series, Phoenix seems to be getting bullied.

  D’Antoni tries to ignite some fire. “All five guys have to be active on every possession,” he says. “It can’t be two guys or three guys—it has to be all five. Forty possessions means forty times everybody goes for the rebound, everybody goes for the loose ball. We do that, we win. That’s mental fucking toughness.”

  Which the Suns don’t have, whether it be caused by the no–Raja Bell effect, the Mavs’ depth, or their own collective fatigue. As Howard, and, inevitably, Nowitzki heat up, the Mavs lead by four, then six, then eight. Diop, whose arms seem to extend the entire width of the court, contains Diaw, and no one else can catch fire. The Suns hang around but Thomas makes a careless pass that leads to a Howard layup and a six-point lead with 1:47 left. Game over. Dallas wins 95–88.

  Right after the game, Gentry says what D’Antoni is thinking: “We had more shots tonight with five, four, or three seconds on the shot clock than I’ve ever seen us have. We had no movement.” D’Antoni isn’t sure what he’s going to tell his team, but the decision is taken away from him by Nash, who is already lecturing when the coaches enter for their postgame recap.

  “When we’re really tough is when we kick and move it,” Nash is saying. “That’s when we’re hard to guard. They’re not a great defensive team, but they become one when guys stop and go one-on-one. All right, something doesn’t work, we dive, it’s not there, okay go back to it.” Nash’s tone is reasonably calm but he moves his arms animatedly, similar to the motion that D’Antoni makes when he tells his team to rev it up. “We keep it moving, they are not a great defensive team,” continues Nash. “But we can’t score thirty-some points [they scored only thirty-six] in the second half. That’s not us.”

  The players listen and some nod their heads. But it’s a quiet room. Nash is obviously upset. What should happen now is that someone else stand in support, echo what Nash has to say, then call everyone together and turn it into a positive. Perhaps Bell would’ve been that second voice had he played in the game, but the timing is not right for an injured player to make a speech. James Jones had tried before and it didn’t work. Brian Grant is a respected voice, but he hasn’t played since God knows when. Tim Thomas is too new. Boris Diaw doesn’t have the personality to address the team, nor does Barbosa. No, it should be Marion, the other cocaptain. But he stays seated, perhaps because he thinks that Nash is talking mostly to him.

  D’Antoni takes over. “All right, real quick,” says the coach, “just to repeat what Steve said, obviously we didn’t watch the film yet, but my impression is: We didn’t run. If we don’t run, if we can’t find the energy, then we can forget it.” He stops. There is silence and a couple of coughs.

  “And if we hang our heads, we’re really fucked. We have to show some leadership here. Somebody’s going to have to step up and show something. Guys, you get here about once, twice, maybe, three times in your career. We’re here! So, first, enjoy it. Two, bust ass. Three, yell and scream like crazy people out here. Let’s play! We lost, that’s one thing, but we sit here and feel sorry for ourselves. The mood is not great. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s just not great. These games are too important, guys, too important.

  “What we do great, we just didn’t do it. The ball didn’t hop, we just didn’t run.”

  Then D’Antoni remembers that the Suns are down by only 2–1. He must bring them back up. He can’t lose them now. The seven-game experiences against the L.A. teams have to be presented as a positive.

  “Hey, guys, we been through a lot,” says D’Antoni. “We been at 2–1 before. We just have to come in, get the next one, and even this thing up, then see if they get tight in Dallas. Now let’s go!” Marion’s 1-2-3 SUNS chant is emphatic, but, clearly, there will have to be a mood swing before Game 4.

  In the press room, Nash talks about “slumped shoulders” and “bad body language” and “giving in.” He mentions no names but does add that, “We miss Raja’s fighting spirit.”

  In the coaches office, meanwhile, Bell and D’Antoni are meeting behind closed doors. Bell has had enough of being a spectator.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  [The Second Season]

  Phoenix, May 29……………….

  MAVS LEAD SERIES 2–1

  “Every time a second goes by, we get less productive.”

  In the morning, D’Antoni takes a call from Herb Rudoy, Raja Bell’s agent. It pretty much makes official what the coach and player talked about last night after the game.

  “I just wanted to let you know,” says Rudoy, “that you’ll have to kill Raja to keep him out of the lineup tomorrow night.”

  D’Antoni talks it over with Aaron Nelson. They’re going to see how Bell does with movement drills at practice, but no one should so much as hint to the media that he is even thinking of coming back.

  The coaches barely even discuss it among themselves. There are too many other problems, and a feeling of desperation permeates the morning meeting. A specific Dallas play—a high pick-and-roll involving Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry, D’Antoni’s particular bête noire—is frozen on the pla
sma screen for at least fifteen minutes as they figure out how to defense it.

  That’s not even the Suns’ biggest concern, which remains, as always, their offense. Fix the offense and fix the game. Keep everyone moving and we can’t be beat. One frozen frame shows Nash surrounded by four Maverick defenders. Marion doesn’t go to the corner, Diaw doesn’t dive down the lane, Thomas doesn’t come over to set a pick, and Nash, near the end of the shot clock, throws it away. It’s a microcosm of what went wrong in Game 3. They talk about adding a couple more options for Diaw and Nash, but, as Iavaroni says, “I don’t know how many more things we can give Steve and Boris to do.”

  At practice, though, D’Antoni conveys none of the wretched feeling that was in the coaches room. “The biggest thing is that it’s only 2–1, guys,” he tells the team. “They have to beat us two more times. And we’ve dominated them for the last two years, so I don’t think they can do it.”

  As his teammates run through the Mavs’ dummy offense, then work on their shooting, Bell goes through a series of drills under Nelson’s direction. Nelson is looking for little things that others might miss, a lack of explosiveness, or maybe a look of pain on Bell’s face when he cuts quickly. There is no question that Bell is retarding his recovery by trying to come back. Two weeks would be a normal healing time for anyone, and a less-dedicated player, which is almost anyone, might be out for as long as a month. But the governing medical thought is: Bell will probably not do permanent damage to the calf even if he tears it a little more, but if he doesn’t get back on the court the season could be over. He’ll have nothing but time to rehab it.

  Nelson knows that Bell isn’t 100 percent, but he looks pretty good. D’Antoni wonders if Bell “has some gene that kicks in during times of stress.” It can be a bad thing, when it re-leases his temper, but perhaps now it is firing, pushing him to get better and beat the odds. Every once in a while a teammate will go over and say something to Bell, but it’s not like he needs encouragement. “Plus,” says Nelson, “he has this.” The trainer pulls out a medal from under his shirt. “St. Rafael,” he says, “the patron saint of healing.”

  When Bell is finished, he comes over for an energy drink.

  “Something you should know, Raja,” I tell him. “Willis Reed? Who made that amazing entry at the 1970 Finals when he was injured?”

  “I’ve seen the video,” says Bell.

  “He wore number 19. Just like you.”

  Bell smiles widely. “I’m going to remember that,” he says.

  D’Antoni, Nelson, and Bell himself are still selling the idea that he won’t return for Game 4. And, in truth, they don’t know. They have to see how Bell responds to this workout and then gets additional treatment over the next twenty-four hours. But Dan D’Antoni has no doubts. “Raja will play,” he says. “God heals warriors faster than mere mortals.”

  His brother overhears him. “Sorry, Danny,” he says, “but I’ve got to steal that line for the media.” He does, too.

  D’Antoni has other business for the day—a meeting with Marion, just the two of them, in the coaches office, door closed. And it’s not just because Marion had ten points, a playoff low, and zero assists in Game 3. The coach thinks it’s time to get his feelings out, and he senses that Marion has something to say, too.

  Marion complains, not unexpectedly, that D’Antoni never hollers at anyone except him.

  “What you’re really saying,” says the coach, “is that I don’t holler at Steve.”

  D’Antoni says that is not accurate because he hollers often at Boris and Leandro, but he does concur that he rarely directs criticism at Nash. He tells Marion there’s a reason for that: “Because when Steve screws up, particularly on defense, it has nothing to do with lack of hustle. It has to do with him simply getting overpowered or out-quicked. But your mistakes, Shawn, can sometimes be tied to lack of hustle or desire.”

  D’Antoni also says that Nash, though being the MVP, is the one taking extra practice and working hard to expand the parameters of his game. That implies that Marion could use extra work, too, particularly on his ball-handling and outside shooting.

  Marion still insists that the coaches judge him more harshly than they judge other players, that he’s held to a different standard. And, if he’s held to that standard, if he’s the one who always has to adjust his game to everybody else, then he’s the one who should be getting props from the franchise. But most of the marketing machinery, he complains, churns out for Nash and even Stoudemire.

  D’Antoni hears him out, and, at the end of the meeting, he comes to the same conclusion he always comes to: Shawn is a good guy and I wish we could get this straightened out. Player and coach shake hands. Whatever each feels inside, there is nothing close to a schism. Marion says he will come out battling in Game 4.

  May 30

  GAME 4 TONIGHT

  D’Antoni shows up at 7 a.m. only to find an empty coaches’ office, which is highly unusual. At the very least, Iavaroni should be there, padding around in his stockinged feet, piles of Tylenol packets under his chair. But then he remembers: It’s a 6 p.m. game and he himself has scheduled shootaround for two hours before game time, not at the normal 11 a.m. The coaches aren’t due to come in until about 1 p.m. Before turning around and going home, D’Antoni calls his brother and wakes him. “I’m up, Danny, so you may as well be, too,” he says.

  At his home, Raja Bell picks up the morning edition of the Arizona Republic and reads a story about himself: “Raja Bell, who will not play in tonight’s Game 4 at US Airways Center, is more optimistic about his availability for Thursday’s Game 5 in Dallas.”

  Bell dashes off an e-mail to Aaron Nelson saying he is almost sure he can play. “What time will you be at the arena?” Bell writes.

  “Three p.m,” Nelson responds.

  “Be prepared,” Bell writes back.

  Bell shows up at the appointed hour, Nelson puts him through some paces, and Nelson says, “Okay, you can go. I’ll tell Mike.”

  At about the same time, Iavaroni is finishing up his board.

  3rd MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT

  Underdogs vs. lakers (4-3)

  Underdogs vs. clippers (4-3)

  Underdogs vs. mavericks TONIGHT IS THE NEXT STEP! SHOW WINNING SPIRIT!

  About a half hour before tip-off, D’Antoni takes his position in front of the team. He looks to his right. There is Bell, lacing up his sneakers in front of his locker, where, a few minutes earlier, he had heard Charles Barkley weigh in with his observation that Bell shouldn’t be playing and should’ve surrendered his spot to a healthy player. Magic Johnson, also part of the studio team, has more or less agreed with Barkley. The comments only serve as more motivation.

  Nelson has fitted Bell with a half-sleeve directly over the partially torn calf and a longer second sleeve over the entire leg. The team already knows he’s coming back, and D’Antoni doesn’t even mention it except to note Bell’s defensive assignment for the evening—he’ll start on Jason Terry but will probably have to cover Josh Howard and Jerry Stackhouse at times. Bell didn’t know whether he was going to start or come off the bench—that was purely the coach’s decision.

  Before D’Antoni sends them out, he again emphasizes the need for speed.

  “Alvin,” D’Antoni says to Gentry, “what was that offensive stat again?”

  “We were seven of eleven when we shot within the first seven seconds of the shot clock,” Gentry answers.

  “Every time a second goes by,” D’Antoni says, “we get less productive.”

  The Suns seem ready. But back in the office D’Antoni still isn’t sure. “If we don’t come out with energy,” he says, “we’re screwed.”

  The crowd greets Bell with a loud ovation. It’s hard to say whether a heroic return from injury measures up to a mugging of Kobe Bryant, but it’s certainly in the same league. A minute into the game, Bell hits his first shot—a sixteen-foot jumper. Then he hits another a minute later. Marion is active, getting two dunks on h
ard dives down the middle, exactly the kind of play D’Antoni wants him to make.

  But the Mavs weather the emotional start of the game and chip away at Phoenix’s early eight-point lead. No matter how often Nash drives to the basket, he can’t get a call, even though the Maverick guards ride him out of the lane by putting two hands on his waist. On one play in the second period, Tim Thomas is arguing with a referee when Nowitzki, his man, calls for the ball and takes a jump shot that Thomas barely even sees him get off. Fortunately for the Suns, it misses.

  The Suns’ halftime lead is 51–46, again that frightening five-point advantage. Bell gives a brief interview to TNT’s Craig Sager, in which he said he felt “disrespected” by Barkley’s and Johnson’s comments. This leads Barkley to call Bell a “whiner.” Somewhere along the line, Barkley has lost his sense of humor, at least in regard to himself. He is beginning to treat everything he says as scripture—disagree, and thunderbolts shoot from the sky.

  On his way into the locker room, Nash stops by the family room to kiss his twins. He seems relaxed. He even picked up a lucky field goal when, on an intended lob to Marion, the ball went directly into the basket. Everyone is playing well, especially Barbosa, who has made six of seven shots and grabbed four rebounds off the bench.

  But five points, as the Suns know, isn’t nearly enough for security.

  Again, Nash speaks in the locker room. As the postseason has gone on, he has increasingly made his voice heard.

  “We’ve had the lead every game in this series,” Nash says. “Let’s get out there early and get prepared. Let’s get off to a good start in this quarter.”

  He never stops dispensing that advice, and most of his teammates never stop ignoring him. Marion is particularly late going out for the third period. Still, the Matrix hits a big three-pointer midway through the period to put Phoenix up by six, then a dunk with thirty-two seconds left that puts the Suns up 79–67 after three. When Diaw dunks over Nowitzki early in the period, Marion claps his hands, raises his fist, and hugs Diaw, a rare expression of emotion.