In a game that won't go down in the annals of Great Homecomings for Dick Motta, Danny Ainge and Greg Kite, the Jazz outlasted the Sacramento Kings last night in the Salt Palace, 110-106.
First of all, Motta, Ainge and Kite all proved that you can come home again. When the game began, there was Motta, at the head of the Sacramento bench. He's the Kings' head coach. And there were Ainge and Kite, in the Kings' starting lineup.But they quickly demonstrated that you can soon wear out your welcome. When the game ended, Ainge was already on the way back to his hotel room at the Marriott, Motta was sitting on a chair in the Kings' locker room, and Kite was on the end of the Kings' bench, exiled there following his fifth personal foul and ensuing technical foul.
This was not a good night if you once played or coached college ball in the state.
Motta got two technicals and was outta there.
Ainge got one technical and was ejected for fighting, or at least giving it the old college try.
Kite got one technical.
And just to show that the discrimination knew no team barriers, Phil Johnson, the Jazz assistant coach, got one technical.
Motta and Johnson, of course, coached at Weber State, and Ainge and Kite played at Brigham Young.
At least they weren't totally unaccustomed to such treatment in Salt Lake City. University of Utah fans in the crowd were not exactly appalled at the turn of events, particularly in the cases of Ainge and Kite.
A referee named Bill Oakes assessed all of the above-mentioned T's, causing a lot of people to wonder not so much if he went to Utah, but when.
Ainge's ejection came at the end of the first quarter after he charged the Jazz's Delaney Rudd after Rudd pushed Ainge. Ainge never got to Rudd. A number of much calmer bodies intervened between the two players, and a hockey game was averted.
But Ainge still had his mouth, which he directed in the attention of Oakes, who, on this night anyway, was in roughly the same humor as Annie Wilkes on a bad day. He wore an expression that said, "You don't want to make me mad again, do you?" all evening long, and not only did he give Ainge and Rudd their early exits, but he foiled a resolution of Motta's.
When Motta came out of a two-year retirement to take the Kings' job last month, he vowed his technical-getting days were over.
But when he entered the court to restore calm after the Ainge-Rudd non-fight, he became agitated over Oakes' attitude.
"It disturbs me when the referee starts to lecture my players," said Motta. "They have supreme control with the whistle. If they can't control things with that, then they've lost control of the game."
So Motta lectured Oakes, and Oakes told Motta that qualified for a T, and a few minutes later, after more conversational exchanges, he stopped the game long enough to tell Motta that he could just keep on walking, and don't stop until he ran into something that looked like a shower.
That left Kite as the lone Homecoming King, and wouldn't you know it, every time Kite tried to put a double-leg takedown or scissors-head lock on Malone, there was Oakes, blowing his whistle.
Finally, after getting to play only 21 minutes because of his foul problems, Kite - remembered as a Texas gentleman from his BYU days - had had just about enough, and he told Oakes so. He got his technical and almost got another, which would have allowed him to leave the gym and join Motta and Ainge, who were in the Jazz's tape room, watching the game on TV.
Also there in the TV room was Rudd. There were no incidents, and the three, having developed a certain lifeboat mentality, got along quite well.
Meanwhile, the Kings not in exile were surprisingly buoyed by all this adversity. A team with a 2-20 road record coming into the game wasn't used to being treated like a motorcycle gang. They took it as a compliment and kept the Jazz at bay almost till the end - almost being the key word.
The Jazz led by two, 108-106, and had the ball. There were 26 seconds left in the game and 24 seconds on the shot clock. If the Kings could force a Jazz miss, they could get the ball and have a chance to tie or win.
But with the shot clock down to four seconds and the game clock at six, the Kings were whistled with yet another technical foul - this time for an illegal defense violation.
Down at the Kings bench, assistant coach Herman Kull yelled out an obscenity, complaining it was a lousy call. Which it was, considering the circumstances. Oakes didn't hear him, however, and the interim coach did not get a technical, which didn't matter, since John Stockton's successful free throw gave the Jazz the four-point margin that was plenty for the win.
"Well, yes, from our perspective it seemed like every call was against us," said Kite afterward. "I guess we could say we got robbed, but we could also say we blew it. We had the chance to win this thing."