The real Phoenix Suns busted out in game 2 and beat up on the Lakers from start to finish. There was a lot of talk about how the Suns have historically lost game 2's in the last few playoff series. That happened against both the Lakers and Clippers last year. This can be attributed mostly to a loss of focus. Also the Suns didn't play too well in the game 1 on Sunday though they won. Actually, they had not played well in a while if you consider that they lost the last 2 games of the season. So it was nice to see the Suns come out like this and just play their game.
Nash had a bunch of pretty assists and Amare had a block on an attempted dunk by Kobe which obviously fired up the crowd. The Lakers stayed close in the first, but the game was clearly played at the Suns pace and it looked like the Lakers can't hang with the Suns with or without a strong showing by Kobe. Kobe was strong in the first, but slowed down considerably after the first. The Suns on the other hand were on fire and there was just one pretty play after another. And of course the Brazilian Blur started pouring in his share of points as always. He started 0/3 after receiving the sixth man award, but then hit 7/8. Amare anchored the defense and they ran on every chance they got. The prettiest play was when Nash threw an alley-oop to the Matrix from 60 feet.
Lakers had no answer to anything the Suns did. They came in hoping to contain Barbosa, but in game 2 he was just one of the many problems the Lakers had to deal with. The Suns poured in 68 in the first and the game was pretty much over. Then they came out in the third and extended the 21 point lead. The ball was really moving and finding the open guy. Mike D'Antoni had a great line about his offense. He called it the democracy offense where the ball will find the most-open guy regardless of who he is. That was so true on this day. There was a great play where Nash threw a no look pass to Matrix who was just a couple of feet away from the bucket, but when Amare's defender switched over to him, he threw a pass at the last moment to Amare for an easy dunk.
At the end of third, it was obvious the starters can enjoy some rest. Nash and Amare didn't have to play much in the 4-Th and the Suns played pretty much everybody on their roster. And every one of them scored. For the Lakers, Kobe came back in the fourth and twisted his ankle. Inexplicably, he still stayed in the game for a few more minutes before being pulled out. Bad loss for the Lakers and they look totally clueless right now. Can the Lakers win at least one game in the series? Thats what every expert is asking.
Teams 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles 25 22 23 28 98
Phoenix 31 37 27 31 126
Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Lamar Odom 4-12 2-5 0-1 5-10 0 3 1 1 3 10
Luke Walton 2-8 3-4 2-4 3-6 3 4 3 0 1 9
Kwame Brown 3-6 1-2 0-0 0-4 0 1 0 1 4 7
Kobe Bryant 5-13 4-4 1-4 1-4 5 3 1 0 0 15
Jordan Farmar 4-8 1-1 1-3 0-1 3 1 0 0 1 10
Andrew Bynum 4-7 1-2 0-0 5-12 0 0 0 0 2 9
Maurice Evans 4-9 0-0 2-5 1-1 0 0 1 0 2 10
Smush Parker 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 1 0 0 0 0 0
Brian Cook 2-8 2-2 1-2 1-3 0 2 0 0 2 7
Sasha Vujacic 3-6 0-0 1-3 1-1 2 1 0 0 2 7
Shammond Williams 4-6 0-0 1-2 0-0 2 0 0 1 2 9
Ronny Turiaf 1-3 3-4 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 1 5
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Vladimir Radmanovic - - - -
TOTALS 36-87 17-24 9-24 17-43 16 15 6 3 20 98
FG %:.414; FT %:.708; 3PT %:.375
Points of TO:10
Team rebounds:6
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:1
Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 3-8 4-4 2-4 2-3 2 1 1 2 1 12
Shawn Marion 7-18 4-4 0-2 4-10 4 0 1 0 3 18
Amare Stoudemire 9-13 2-4 0-0 0-9 0 1 1 4 4 20
Raja Bell 4-7 0-0 3-5 0-1 1 0 2 0 1 11
Steve Nash 7-11 0-0 2-4 0-5 14 3 0 0 2 16
Leandro Barbosa 11-18 0-0 4-8 0-2 3 1 2 0 3 26
Boris Diaw 4-6 0-1 0-1 3-4 2 2 0 0 3 8
Kurt Thomas 2-3 3-4 0-0 3-9 1 0 1 0 1 7
Jalen Rose 1-4 0-0 0-1 0-1 2 0 0 0 2 2
Marcus Banks 0-2 2-2 0-1 0-0 1 0 0 0 0 2
Pat Burke 1-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0 0 1 2
Eric Piatkowski 1-1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 50-92 15-19 11-26 12-45 30 8 8 6 21 126
FG %:.543; FT %:.789; 3PT %:.423
Points of TO:18
Team rebounds:10
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0
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