Here is Marty Mac's article...
Marty Mac's World: When Suns' Bell rang, they had right response
By Martin McNeal -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 13, 2006
Story appeared in Sports section, Page C2
For the sake of setting the scene, let's acknowledge the reality that the Phoenix Suns punked the Kings on Tuesday night in the second half of their 123-110 road victory at Arco Arena.
In part, inspired by Phoenix guard Raja Bell basically telling his teammates at halftime that he wasn't "a little cat," wasn't going to be treated like one and would fight anybody and everybody in the Sacramento locker room, the Suns erased a 17-point halftime lead entering the fourth quarter by becoming the aggressors.
The Kings not only backed away from the challenge, they also started playing stupid, nonwinning basketball. And that starts with coach Rick Adelman and goes right on down the list. Instead of the Kings continuing to punish the Suns as they had to get the lead, they got soft and settled for jumpers. Yet the game was tied to start the fourth. Granted, the Suns had whatever momentum existed, but the Kings were playing at home, for whatever that was worth.
Phoenix went on to shoot 16 of 20 from the field (3 of 5 from three-point range) and 4 of 4 from the line. That's 80 percent - 80 percent. Nine of those made field goals came on jumpers, mostly unchallenged by the Kings' defense.
Offensively, though, is where the Kings went badly astray. Mike Bibby entered the fourth having made 8 of 14 field-goal attempts (3 of 6 behind the arc) and having scored 20 points. In the fourth, he attempted one field goal (a miss) and scored zero points. Shareef Abdur-Rahim stepped in for an invisible Kenny Thomas (15 minutes, no shot attempts, three rebounds, one steal) and had made 5 of 6 field-goal attempts and scored 14 points.
Abdur-Rahim made his lone field-goal attempt in five minutes. So, you have the players incapable or unwilling to go to the players who were doing work and, ultimately, you have Adelman allowing it to happen.
Meanwhile, Ron Artest has the ball in his hands far too much and gets up eight field-goal attempts (three makes) as well as one made free throw in four attempts.
And here lies a bigger problem: The Kings are catering to Artest far too much, and the only thing that's going to happen is eventually he's going to go off.
Unquestionably, Adelman has shown he is not going to challenge Artest, just as he never publicly challenged Chris Webber.
Clearly, both Webber and Artest are capable of being "special," but we all know Ron-Ron's special can be special.
Case in point: With less than four minutes left, Bonzi Wells missed a drive, rebounded the miss and then made a layup to get Sacramento within 107-100. Seven seconds later, Shawn Marion scored on an alley-oop dunk.
The only two players back on defense were Artest, who went to a three-point shooter, and Wells. It was too ridiculous.
Artest felt so and decided a timeout was in order. So he called one. Special, baby.
Adelman said, "No!!!" then immediately motioned for it to be a 20-second timeout. The players were as shocked as Adelman. After the game, Artest said he was just trying to find out what the team was supposed to be doing. Well, that, and he was ready to explode, and with good reason. And it sure looked as if Artest cussed out a couple teammates.
Now, I don't have a problem with a player calling a timeout in extreme circumstances. I'm from Queens and so is Ron, so maybe it's a Queens thing. Most players wouldn't dream of calling a timeout without a coach's direction.
However, at some point, Adelman and/or somebody on his coaching staff is going to have to get with Artest and chill him out. They have to coach him and make him realize that sometimes being the man does not mean taking over the offense with shots, but also with passes.
And it means the coach has to call plays that don't involve him, or use him as a decoy and get the ball to those who are going well.
Somebody has to man up, sooner or later.
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Sorry, but this really boggles my mind, as well as the implication that Bibby has no heart and desire.
