The phone buzzed on Monday morning, …

The phone buzzed on Monday morning, followed by a most uncomfortable hush. No hello. No words. Only moments of silence turning into a muffled heave, and finally, a brokenhearted sob. “You had to come from Maryland and D.C. and Prince George’s County to know what Coach Thompson meant to us,” Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams finally said on the phone Monday. “I played in his gym one summer, and he cussed me out because I wasn’t doing something right, and man, it was an honor. Patrick [Ewing] and Alonzo [Mourning] were there playing pickup, and I felt for a moment like I was part of their family, because Coach didn’t talk to everyone like that. “… He looked like my granddad, and every time I saw him …”