It didn't matter that Two-Time, as teammates call Steve Nash because of those two MVP trophies back home, was down to one functioning eye.It didn't matter that the Phoenix Suns' double-digit lead vanished almost as soon as Nash left the floor to get six stitches to close a deep cut.It didn't matter that the San Antonio Spurs would also hit the Suns with a four-point play in the final minute, which only added to the here-we-go-again dread that even Nash couldn't completely fend off -- when he wasn't arching his eyebrows as high as he could during stoppages in play in an unsuccessful attempt to keep that right eye open.
Nash and the Suns survived it all on this bloody Sunday night. They weathered Tim Duncan's inadvertent elbow to Nash's face on a drive and every last ounce of the San Antonio's old desert-haunting mojo, pulling out a 107-101 victory in a sweep-sealing Game 4 that somehow generated the tension of a Game 7.
When he finally made it to the postgame podium, with his eye swollen completely shut and his eyelid unmistakably (and fittingly) purple once you got up close to him, Nash cracked: "Do we need to even say anything?"
The implication was clear. Nash couldn't see his audience too well, but he figured everyone in the room had a fair idea of what it meant for the Suns to complete a 4-0 brooming of their longtime playoff tormentors, after San Antonio KO'd Phoenix from the postseason four times in a six-season span from 2003-08.
You've also surely heard that six of Nash's previous 13 seasons ended with a loss to the hosts. That should help explain why Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, Duncan and finally Spurs legend David Robinson, spilling onto the floor from his courtside seat, looked legitimately happy for Nash during the postgame exchange of hugs.
"I couldn't be happier for a class, class, class guy," Popovich said. "I hate him, but he's classy."
Said Nash: "Fortunately someone was smiling on us tonight."
That's true to some degree. Unlike the unforgettably bloody nose he suffered in crunch time of Game 1 of the teams' 2007 epic series, Nash had the good sense to get nailed in the third quarter this time, giving the Suns' training staff sufficient time to sew up this gash and set him up to return for the whole fourth quarter.
In this series, though, these Suns consistently earned a good slice of their fortune, repeatedly proving -- despite the absence of injured center Robin Lopez -- that they're tougher, deeper and more legit defensively than any of the teams San Antonio tortured throughout the previous decade. Phoenix failed to score 20 points in the first quarter in both games in San Antonio and still managed to creep past 100 in both cases, finishing off this improbable sweep of a team that had just dumped No. 2-seeded Dallas with a vintage display of two-man dominance from the Suns' longest sufferers.
Nash (10 points, five assists) and Stoudemire (12 points) combined for 22 of the Suns' 35 points in the final period, despite vintage San Antonio pressure on the ball in the backcourt and the rather limited peripheral vision that admittedly had Nash "pretty worried" when he first went back in. It was the famously steady Duncan, meanwhile, who committed a bad fifth foul out of frustration with nearly six minutes to play in regulation and finished a fatal 16-for-34 from the free-throw line for the series.
Stoudemire wound up with 29 points, Nash totaled 20 points and nine assists and Jared Dudley emerged as the latest difference-maker off the Phoenix bench, contributing 16 points and six boards on near-perfect shooting.
"As you can see," Dudley said, "it's a different [Suns] team and a different year."
Nash believes it, too, but admits that his confidence was briefly shaken after taking the hit from Duncan with 5:52 to go in the third, after which Phoenix quickly surrendered the final seven points of its seemingly comfortable 64-53 lead.
"We'd gone 3 1/2 games with clear sailing," Nash said, explaining why he initially assumed the worst while being worked on in the Suns' locker room.
Then Nash caught himself, realizing he was falling prey to "something always happens against San Antonio" thinking that could easily spread to less-experienced teammates.
Here-we-go-again pity, Nash concluded, is "just a self-fulfilling prophecy."
So he came back and flourished, offering up a decent facsimile of the 36-year-old who shredded the Spurs for 33 points and 10 assists in a tone-setting Game 1. The Spurs responded with plenty of their trademark toughness -- Tony Parker, for example, had to get a pre-game painkiller shot in his posterior to deal with his sore shoulder and back after multiple falls in Game 3 -- but couldn't prevent their 15th successive loss in the playoffs when surrendering 100 points.
"It just hard to guard those guys -- for us to guard them -- for 48 minutes," Popovich said. "You have to be pretty perfect. We have to be pretty perfect."
It proved too much to ask. The Spurs quietly managed to hold Jason Richardson under 20 points for the third successive game -- well aware that Phoenix is 30-4 this season when Richardson gets to 20 -- and still couldn't avoid the sight of a joyous Stoudemire, walking off the podium as Nash was heading for the microphone, to make a giddy joke about his own eye issues last season.
"Two-Time with the Stoudemire vision," Amare said to his point guard.
For once they're leaving this town with a laugh ... along with an endorsement from Duncan about their chances of surprising the mighty Lakers next.
None of this was expected back in October when the Suns convened for training camp, or even as recently as February when Stoudemire was nearly dealt before the trading deadline. Now?
The Suns are on a 36-9 roll since Jan. 26. And it certainly can't hurt Nash, Lopez or Grant Hill -- reincarnated at 37 as a defensive stopper -- that the Suns' trip to the conference finals probably won't start for another week.
"The way they're playing," Duncan said, "they have a chance against anyone." Whatever happens,happens for a reason
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