LOL! PHOENIX -- All is not well with the Phoenix Suns, as evidenced by the self-critical remarks of coach Scott Skiles and a shouting match between star guards Penny Hardaway and Stephon Marbury. There were more minor altercations in a spirited scrimmage on Thursday, one between Hardaway and Dan Majerle and another between Jake Tsakalitis and Alton Ford. "That's just competition. That's just part of basketball," Hardaway said. "When you're losing, it's just frustration. That's all it is. Steph wants to come here and win. I wanted to be healthy and come back and win, and it just hasn't worked out that way." At one point during the scrimmage, Hardaway was upset with a foul call against him by an assistant coach and bounced the ball so hard it knocked a tile off of the ceiling of the Suns' practice gym at America West Arena. "I didn't mean to do that," Hardaway said. "I'm just glad it didn't hit anybody." Hardaway said that he and Marbury engaged in a three-minute shouting match at the shootaround Tuesday. That night, the Los Angeles Clippers handed the Suns their third loss in a row, 96-92. Marbury shrugged off the incident. Both players said it would not be a long-term problem. "We had a disagreement in the locker room. That's all," Marbury said. "If we can't have a disagreement, it's going to be hard to play with each other." Skiles, an intense competitor in his playing days, didn't think the pratice incidents were necessarily a bad thing. "I wish we would compete in the game the way we compete in practice sometimes," he said. "Guys are together a lot and things happen, but we need to carry some of that competitiveness into the games, and we haven't done that much lately." After the Suns blew a fourth-quarter lead at Denver on Saturday, Skiles openly asked "Am I the problem?" Phoenix let another late lead get away against the Clippers, and Skiles again sounded like a coach ready to give up. He said Thursday that he was only trying to point out that coaches have to be just as accountable as players. "If I believe in defense and rebounding and we're not doing it, my comments spoke for themselves. Apparently I'm not convincing the guys enough," Skiles said. "I'm just letting it be known that I deserve the same amount of criticism that the guys do." Skiles said that while the job is extremely demanding, he is not burned out and has no intention of quitting. "I think the only guys who aren't susceptible to burnout are the guys that aren't working very hard," he said. "Anybody who cares deeply about it, who works real hard and stays up late, disects opponents and video, you're always subject to that. ... But I don't feel burned out at all. I don't think I could get burned out." Skiles said that he hasn't met many people who are as intense as he is, and doesn't hold his team to some unrealistic standard. He just wants them to play defense and rebound better. Phoenix has been good enough to beat the Los Angeles Lakers and rout the Sacramento Kings, then play poorly in defeats against the Nuggets and Clippers. Hardaway and Marbury said they both have to take leadership roles to add some fire into the team's play. Marbury, brought to the Suns in the trade that sent Jason Kidd to New Jersey, has no complaints about his coach. "I love playing for coach Skiles," Marbury said, "because he's just like me, as far as his personality. He's a perfectionist, on and off the court. He's a guy who wants the most every time. He doesn't want it 50 percent of the time. I want to play for him because every time when I go out on the court, I know that I'm being challenged."
