Stephon Marbury was up to his old tricks last night against the Houston Rockets, and it just may have been the thing to bring his team down.

Marbury, who only last month had a verbal war with ex-teammate Kevin Garnett through the press, taunted Rockets point guard Steve Francis during a timeout in the second quarter according to a report by Janny Hu in the Houston Chronicle.  Marbury told Francis that he (Marbury) was the real All-Star on the court, but the self-confessed All-Star's comments would come back to haunt him as he went cold from the field, shooting 9-for-23 the rest of the night.

"You never want to blame a back-to-back for a loss, because it can be done," said Marbury, who still finished with 32 points. "You've just got to focus. The last game is in the past, the next game is the future, this game is the present."

"It was the battle of the No. 3s," Rockets guard Moochie Norris said. "No. 3 vs. No. 3. It was fun for me to watch. (Marbury's) the leader. He going to talk to his teammates and try to motivate them. That's his job, he's the point guard, he's like the second coach. That's the job he has to go out there and do."

The Suns are super at home. Stephon Marbury and Shawn Marion, sensational Sunday. And so much went so right for Phoenix down the stretch.

If you think coach Jerry Sloan couldn't have any more headaches in the Jazz's 107-99 loss to the Suns, you're wrong.
     
Dead wrong.
     
"We've got some problems that can get to the point they're not solvable," an irate Sloan said after Utah fell to 21-15, losing for the second time in four games while 24-14 Phoenix, which pulled away in the final two minutes, won for the 10th straight time at America West Arena.
     
"Maybe they've got something going against me that I'm not aware of. But I'm not a guy that's going to run and hide ? from any of them. I want that to be made clear," Sloan added after watching Marbury drop 38 points while Marion added 31. "Because, I mean, I'm not going to go down easy. If they're going to go against me and what we're trying to do out there, then I'm not going to go down easy."

All season long, Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire have ranked among the NBA's most productive players in clutch situations.

Sunday, all three of them came through at crunch time in one game, lifting the Suns to a 107-99 victory over the Utah Jazz that pushed the club's winning streak at America West Arena to 10 games.

Marbury chewed up a Utah defense packed into the paint to stop his penetrating and poured in 38 points.