Lakers played a game today which was eerily similar to the playoff series last year. The Suns started on fire and I thought this one was in the bag. They led 11-0 and then led by 17 before ending the first 31-17. Business was good, except for the fact Amare had 2 early fouls. As it turned out, this came back to haunt them all night. In the second, the Lakers non-existent pride kicked in. The role players started playing their role and most of all, they started D'ing up like crazy. They started harassing Nash and pretty much everybody else. Amare was tentative because of his fouls and the Lakers owned the paint on both ends of the floor. They crashed the boards and this is where it looked a lot like the series last year. They didn't out-board the Suns by all that much - 44-35, but they killed them on the offensive glass. They had a 19-6 edge on the offensive glass and thats where the game was won.
This was not supposed to happen with Amare in the paint this year and didn't happen in games 1 and 2. But this game was different with him in foul trouble and with Kwame making Michale Jordan look smart at least for a day for drafting him number 1. Lamar was no slouch either as he set up a tent in the paint next to Kwame and got 16 boards to go with 18 points. Lamar had 6 offensive boards and Kwame had 4. Kobe started dominating this game in the second quarter and kept on going as he drove to the basket with ease. The Suns D was not in sync today and the offense staled as well as the pressure built coming off the early 17 point lead. Thats the problem with early leads. They are hard to hold on and as it slowly dissipates, the pressure shifts to the team that was leading big.
Kobe had 45-6-6 on 15/26 shooting, which is very efficient for him. He scored a lot, but also got his teammates involved, especially Kwame. He drove, drew a crowd and found Kwame for open dunks. There was a stretch in the third when Kwame had 3 straight dunks. Not just baskets but wide-open dunks as Amare had to help out on some guy or the other driving to the hoop on the strong side. While all this was happening on the offensive end, the Lakers defense was very good as well. Phillip's adjustment was to play Shammond Williams a lot for defensive, especially on Barbosa. Shammond and Smush Parker harassed both Nash and Barbosa and Barbosa was contained pretty well today. They also trapped Nash aggressively on every pick-and-roll. The Bigs chased him out and though Nash had seen it all before, it was hard for him to counter that. All of these problems explain the poor output for the Suns as they just scored 89 and that was after a 31 point first quarter. You know the Suns don't win many games scoring 89.
With all that said, here's the good news for the Suns. They still tied this game at 89 with 2 minutes to go on a Barbosa 3. But their poor execution all night hurt them in the final minutes as well and a ridiculous turnaround fade-away jumper by Kobe sealed the deal for the Lakers. The Suns actually had some chances in the 4-Th as they finally seemed to adjust to the high-energy Lakers D and also defend a little better. But, it just was not meant to be as they were facing a desperate team that didn't want to go down 0-3.
Now it's up to the Suns to come up with the same energy and try to avoid a 2-2 tie in this series. They have 3 things to worry about. How to respond to the defensive wrinkles from Phillip that affects both Nash and Barbosa? How to defend the Lakers bigs and keep Amare out of foul trouble? Even with Amare, the Lakers are much bigger and they can't be allowed to rebound like this. Thirdly, Kobe got to the paint way too easily despite the fact he had much worse perimeter shooters today since Smush and Shammond were on the floor primarily for defense. That can't happen. It's the Suns turn to make adjustments now. They are the better team, but they have to un-track their offense. Playoffs bring new levels of intensity and new adjustments that you have to respond to.
Teams 1 2 3 4
Phoenix 31 20 19 19 89
Los Angeles 17 31 26 21 95
Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 1-2 0-0 0-0 1-2 1 0 0 0 0 2
Shawn Marion 4-12 1-3 1-3 0-4 1 1 1 2 2 10
Amare Stoudemire 11-17 2-2 0-2 2-10 3 3 0 2 4 24
Raja Bell 3-7 1-2 2-4 1-3 5 1 1 0 5 9
Steve Nash 4-9 1-1 1-2 0-4 13 5 0 0 2 10
Kurt Thomas 3-6 0-0 0-0 0-4 0 1 0 0 3 6
Boris Diaw 3-4 2-2 0-0 1-3 5 2 0 0 1 8
Leandro Barbosa 7-18 1-2 5-11 1-5 2 2 0 0 1 20
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 36-75 8-12 9-22 6-35 30 15 2 4 18 89
FG %:.480; FT %:.667; 3PT %:.409
Points of TO:17
Team rebounds:10
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:1
Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Luke Walton 2-6 0-0 1-2 1-3 2 1 1 0 2 5
Lamar Odom 8-17 1-2 1-3 6-16 2 1 0 2 2 18
Kwame Brown 8-14 3-5 0-0 4-6 0 3 0 2 1 19
Kobe Bryant 15-26 13-13 2-3 0-6 6 5 1 1 3 45
Jordan Farmar 0-2 2-2 0-1 1-3 0 1 1 1 0 2
Andrew Bynum 0-2 3-6 0-0 2-3 0 0 0 0 0 3
Maurice Evans 0-2 0-0 0-0 2-2 1 0 0 0 0 0
Shammond Williams 0-5 0-0 0-2 1-2 3 1 0 0 2 0
Brian Cook 1-3 0-0 1-2 0-1 0 0 0 0 3 3
Smush Parker 0-4 0-0 0-2 2-2 1 0 1 1 2 0
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Vladimir Radmanovic - - - -
Sasha Vujacic - - - -
Ronny Turiaf - - - -
TOTALS 34-81 22-28 5-15 19-44 15 12 4 7 15 95
FG %:.420; FT %:.786; 3PT %:.333
Points of TO:8
Team rebounds:7
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:2
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