Game 3 - Drag

I did not watch the entire game, but it looked a lot like game 2 continued. Again, they were a play or two away from tying the game or going ahead and putting some pressure on the Lakers, but just kept falling short. Once again their lack of size was completely exploited. Every trip down the floor was 2 or 3 shots for the Lakers. Down the stretch, they just dominated the boards. They ended the game with a ridiculous 52-33 rebound differential and a 16-3 offensive rebound advantage. No wonder the Lakers won the game. Philip is truly coaching his team to victory here. Kobe again had a sub-par game. Not only is he playing a secondary role, he is also struggling. He did not have a good game even when did shoot and tried to score. But it didn't matter because Philip has them going inside and all 5 starters were in double figures. Even worse, all the 3 front court players including Luke Walton had double-doubles!

So what do Suns do now? Game 4 is must-win, but how do they win it? Clearly the playoff pressure is causing them to miss shots. They actually tried very hard to play up-tempo. Nash was running like crazy in this one because they thought they really lost game 2 by not running. I was amazed at the energy and effort the Nash put in to this game. He is just amazing. But they are missing shots and the Lakers are over-powering them. This is where I think Mike D'Antoni can be stubborn sometimes. He is wedded to the style and is not flexible enough to try something else. Brian Grant and/or Pat Burke are still not seeing any time. May be they can get a rebound or 2. It should be pretty deflating for this team to not secure defensive boards after all the scrambling and double-teaming they do on defense. Mike D'Antoni just cannot lose the offensive rebounding battle 16-3.

Phil's "inside man" strategy is really brilliant. It hurts the Suns in 3 ways. One, they get in foul trouble. Diaw, Marion and Thomas have all had trouble staying on the floor in this series. Secondly, it puts the Laker bigs in spots to get offensive boards even when they miss. Thirdly, it slows down the fast-break because it's easier to take off of missed jump shots. It's easier to rebound jump shots too. Now all of the Suns bigs are pulled in to the paint and players like Marion just can't take off early. If Kobe is shooting 17 footers, 3 or 4 of the Suns players don't do anyhing on defense. They can just get the rebound and run. But now they are all having to work because the ball is moving around and the Lakers enjoy a size advantage at all 5 spots on the floor.

It'll be very interesting to see how the Suns turn this around.

Teams 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles 24 29 21 25 99
Phoenix 22 16 29 26 93

Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Lamar Odom 9-12 0-0 3-5 1-7 5 4 2 1 3 21
Luke Walton 3-8 2-2 0-1 0-4 1 2 1 0 4 8
Kwame Brown 4-8 4-7 0-0 1-2 0 3 0 2 1 12
Kobe Bryant 12-24 4-6 1-1 0-10 5 4 1 0 4 29
Smush Parker 3-6 2-2 0-1 1-4 3 3 3 0 4 8
Sasha Vujacic 3-6 2-2 3-4 0-2 2 0 0 0 1 11
Devean George 1-4 0-0 1-3 0-6 1 0 0 1 2 3
Brian Cook 2-4 0-0 1-1 1-2 2 1 0 0 4 5
Jim Jackson 1-3 0-0 0-0 1-2 1 0 1 0 1 2
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Andrew Bynum - - - -
Ronny Turiaf - - - -
TOTALS 38-75 14-19 9-16 5-39 20 17 8 4 24 99

FG %:.507; FT %:.737; 3PT %:.563
Points of TO:20
Team rebounds:7
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

PhoenixSHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Tim Thomas 4-12 0-0 3-8 1-9 1 0 0 1 3 11
Shawn Marion 5-15 2-2 1-4 2-9 0 1 1 0 1 13
Boris Diaw 5-10 3-3 0-0 0-4 2 4 0 1 3 13
Raja Bell 8-15 4-4 3-5 0-3 3 0 1 1 6 23
Steve Nash 10-17 7-7 2-7 2-7 9 6 1 0 4 29
Leandrinho Barbosa 0-5 0-0 0-2 1-2 4 2 1 1 2 0
Eddie House 1-3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 1 3 2
James Jones 0-1 2-2 0-1 0-1 0 0 0 1 1 2
Brian Grant 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Pat Burke - - - -
Kurt Thomas - - - -
Amare Stoudemire - - - -
Nikoloz Tskitishvili - - - -
TOTALS 33-78 18-18 9-27 6-35 19 14 4 6 25 93

FG %:.423; FT %:1.000; 3PT %:.333
Points of TO:16
Team rebounds:6
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:1