Sacramento's Artest goes 'whacko' late in game

No, Jazz fans, Dennis Rodman is not back in the NBA. Ron Artest just gave his best impression Friday night at EnergySolutions Arena.

Minus the full body of ink art, the clown-colored hair and the wedding dress, of course.

Though Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko, Deron Williams — and even Sacramento's Kevin Martin — lit up the stat sheets in Utah's 127-113 win, Artest stole the show with his, well, enthusiastic and emotional antics that were reminiscent of the old Jazz nemesis.

"He started getting a little whacko out there. He started going crazy," said Jazz forward Matt Harpring, who got tangled up a couple of times with Artest while they defended each other. "You know, that's his game and if that's how he plays, that's how he plays. It's OK, we won the game."

Artest's sideshow ended when got thrown out — to a huge, mocking roar by Jazz fans — after slapping at Boozer. The refs slapped back at him, giving him his second technical and accompanying automatic ejection with the game still on the line with 4:34 remaining.

In his energetic and sometimes seemingly out-of-control outing, Artest scored 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds. His tip-in late in the third quarter even brought the Kings to within one point at 77-76.

What didn't show up in the boxscore: His repeated first-down-like signals when the refs awarded the Kings the ball; his continual chest-thumpings that he did in good and bad times and often at the crowd; his barking at players and fans; his getting mixed up with Harpring a time or two and then oddly trying to play peacemaker after he helped Harpring bump into Kings guard Kevin Martin; and flailing body parts.

As the game went on, so too did the level of Artest's emotional outbursts. But the Jazz players say they made a point of trying to keep their composure even while the emotions heated up.

"What are you going to do? Let him do his thing and watch him and laugh," Harpring said. "Certainly Ron Artest isn't going to make me do anything stupid."

Boozer knows that Artest can be a physical player and loves competition. Boozer just thinks Artest needs to keep his emotions in check at times. That's something the volatile Sacramento forward can't claim to have done Friday, but Boozer believes the Jazz accomplished.

"We had to be smarter than falling into the trap," Boozer said. "I know he wanted to see one of us make a mistake. We talked about it in the huddle — 'We keep the composure, stay focused on what our task is at hand' — and we did a good job of that."