Bell’s Return Is Spark for Suns

PHOENIX —  Raja Bell was no longer limping. Neither were the Phoenix Suns.

Written off after a home loss that seemed to demoralize most of the Sonoran Desert, the Suns got healthier in a big way with a series-tying 106-86 victory Tuesday over Dallas in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

Bell made a surprise return after missing two games because of a calf injury, Leandro Barbosa was scintillating in a reserve role, and the Suns were still alive, which might have been only a temporary state if they went back to Dallas with a 3-1 deficit.

“I guess we’re not done yet,” Suns Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “There was a lot of talk the last couple days. We swallowed a lot.”

The game had just about everything at US Airways Center, from the bitter to the bizarre.

Another athlete -- Bell, this time -- said he felt “disrespected” by TNT analysts and went public with his thoughts in a brief halftime TV interview. Before that, the wife of Mavericks Coach Avery Johnson engaged in a verbal confrontation with a fan, and team owner Mark Cuban rushed to her defense.

On top of it, Dirk Nowitzki scored only 11 points on three-for-13 shooting for the Mavericks, who have never been to the NBA Finals in their 26-year history.

“It looked like we were ... happy with the split [in Phoenix] and that’s disappointing, the way we came out,” Nowitzki said. “It’s up for grabs, really. It’s 2-2 and they showed they can beat us in a big game at home already.”

The Suns got a rise out of the return of Bell, who went down in Game 1 with a strained left calf. Suns officials had been fretting privately that Bell might not be back until late in the series, but he had nine points in 31 minutes Tuesday.

The Suns’ best defender also drew two offensive fouls and expressed unhappiness at halftime with “those guys” on TNT for suggesting that he sit out if not fully healthy.

At any rate, Bell toiled for the Suns.

“I only asked him 185 times, ‘Are you OK, are you OK?’ ” D’Antoni said. “I did get a call [Monday] night, or heard from his agent, that if we don’t want him to play, we might have to shoot him. So it was like, do we kill the guy or let him play?”

The Suns were eminently more active than in a lifeless Game 3 in which they had no steals in a playoff game for the first time in 30 years.

They shot 54.4%, hit seven of 15 three-point attempts, had eight blocked shots and five steals on Tuesday. They also committed only seven turnovers and kept Nowitzki below 20 points for the first time since a February game against the Clippers, a span of 42 games.

“We just decided before the game we were going to shut him out,” Suns guard Steve Nash deadpanned.

The Suns are adept at this, falling behind and catching up. They trailed the Lakers in the first round, 3-1, but became only the eighth team in league history to win such a series.

A loss Tuesday would have meant another, more difficult two-game deficit with two more games remaining in Dallas.

“We couldn’t afford to go down 3-1 and go back to Dallas,” Bell said. “We dodged a bullet in the first round with the Lakers and didn’t want to have to do that again. If I was going to help, tonight was a big game for that.”

Barbosa helped make Bell’s return a favorable one with 24 points on 10-for-13 shooting. Nash had 21 points and seven assists. Boris Diaw had another well-rounded game -- 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists.

Kurt Thomas, a forward-center, also returned for the Suns, his first game since February because of a stress fracture in his right foot.

He had one point in five fourth-quarter minutes when the game was out of reach.

The Mavericks were left to talk about what went wrong on the court -- “We were not there mentally or physically,” Johnson said -- and what took place in the crowd with Johnson’s wife, Cassandra.

“I heard something went on,” Johnson said. “But we’ve been in situations before on the road. Mark’s wife has had problems, my wife, our president. When you’re on the road, you know things will happen. People throw stuff at you. So we’ll see what happened. I hadn’t really talked to her yet.”