Phoenix Suns hold practice at Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver's home

Seven years ago, Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver was building his Paradise Valley home and gave his three sons a choice — basketball gym or tennis court.

They chose a basketball gym, a decision that paid off for his franchise Tuesday when they needed a place to practice.

The NFL took over US Airways Center for Super Bowl media day so the Suns held a normal mid-day practice at the Sarvers' house, which has a basketball facility attached as part of their 28,000-square-foot home. The court was the one used for the 2009 NBA All-Star Game that the Suns hosted.

"The nets aren't used to seeing so many balls go through the nets," Sarver said upon coming home after the practice. "They cleaned out my candy in the break room."

Sarver's wife, Penny, was the team's host for the practice. Sarver had Western Alliance Bancorporation business to run, and their kids were at school.

Sarver said the Suns and Mercury also have used his court to practice.

"The accommodations are good over here at Robert's house," Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said by phone after the closed practice. "He's got a great gym here. All the guys, they've been here before. Robert's had other functions for us. They're familiar with it but it's always good to get to another place and have a practice. I thought the guys were great today. We had a great practice. They really got after it."

The Suns were given Monday off.

New 'T' policy

Hornacek has tried letting the players keep their feisty edge but they wound up leading the NBA in technical fouls and ostensibly leading to a loss at San Antonio. Hornacek tried telling players they would be benched for getting a technical over arguing with officials but Goran Dragic and Markieff Morris did it anyway in consecutive games last weekend. The latter turned a third-quarter tie into a 20-point loss to the Clippers.

They found middle ground Tuesday.

"We're just going to try to do a better job as teammates to corral each other when they start to argue," Hornacek said. "The guys (said) they would do that.

"I told them, 'If you guys do that and kind of help each other out there on the court, we'll kind of look at it and it'll be my discretion whether we do it for the rest of the game.' So we don't have that hard-and-fast rule but I may still sit him for the end of the game if I feel like it."

The Suns have a league-high 36 player technical fouls this season. At times, teammates support each other by continuing to berate officials, who take the Suns' way of protesting calls to be disrespectful.

Instead, teammates now are asked to support each other by calming the situation.

"Good chemistry teams do that," Hornacek said. "They see one of their guys might be toeing the line and they go over there and grab him or say something to the ref like, 'I got him. I'll calm him down.' A lot of the times, the refs appreciate that because they don't want to argue with the guys either so they like it when their own team takes care of it."

Barnes vs. Sarver

The NBA fined Clippers forward Matt Barnes $25,000 for swearing at a fan during his team's Sunday win at Phoenix. That might have just earned a shrug for another Barnes misstep — until he tweeted Tuesday that Sarver was the fan and that his profane insult was a response to Sarver's cussing.

"But because I didn't SNITCH I get fined!! #thecode," Barnes tweeted.

Video shows Barnes was 25 to 30 feet away from Sarver's corner seat with his back turned to him when he made his profane comment. His words were directed into the sideline seats, where three fans were heckling him.

Free throws

Brandan Wright practiced Tuesday after missing Sunday's game because of a sore left heel. He is expected to play tonight against Washington.

•The Suns played one of their better defensive games in the first meeting with Washington but have slipped into the NBA's bottom 10 in key defensive categories. "When you watch back at that tape, we were good most of the game, probably 40 to 45 minutes of the game we were in tune with each other," Hornacek said. "We're going to need to get that type of effort against them now."

Wednesday's game

Wizards at Suns

When: 8:30 p.m.

Where: US Airways Center, Phoenix.

TV/radio: ESPN, KMVP-FM (98.7).

Wizards update: Washington finishes a four-game West trip with tonight's game after playing Tuesday night at the Los Angeles Lakers. The Wizards are 7-3 in the second games of back-to-back sets this season. John Wall entered Tuesday with the NBA lead in assists per game (10.2) and had a career-high 46.1 field-goal percentage for 17.2 points per game. Bradley Beal has been a 44 percent 3-point shooter. The Wizards rank in the top 10 for offensive and defensive field-goal percentage.