It was a fantastic game, and I was really craving a finish like that after the Celtics-Magic blowout last night. It was a pretty well played game, and it was apparent why the Los Angeles Lakers are going to the NBA Finals.
The Lakers set their minds to stopping Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire, and they basically accomplished their goal. Nash had a tough time navigating the Lakers' defense, and left his feet a few times with nowhere to pass. With the exception of a couple dunks in the second half, Stoudemire's shots were contested by as many as three players at a time. He looked completely out of sync until he started getting to the free throw line, but by then it was almost too little too late.
As Doug Collins mentioned a few times, the turning point of the game was when Sasha Vujacic (un)intentionally hit Goran Dragic in the face after Dragic was talking some smack after a jump shot. This got the Suns and the crowd at U.S. Airways Center back into the game, which created momentum until the last couple minutes of the fourth quarter. Alvin Gentry did the right thing by leaving Dragic in as long as he did, even though Nash is the face of the franchise.
But when push came to shove, Kobe Bryant tapped Gentry on the side after making a rediculously tough jump shot over Grant Hill and Channing Frye. As he tends to do, he canned clutch jumper after clutch jumper with 2-4 hands in his face, and even a running one hander from 18 feet away. The Suns showed a lot of playoff toughness, but in the end, the better team moved on to the Finals.
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