The Suns Will Rise Again

Are you worried? I'm not. Who could be after the Lakers played out of their minds and collective talent level in order to come up with a win...by a whopping six points? A foul call here, a rebound there, and a couple less turnovers, and we're talking about a Suns stranglehold on this series. Big wankin' deal, I say.

The best that the Lakers could muster was a night of 42% shooting, 4 steals, and 44 rebounds - one more than the Suns normally give up on average. The Suns, meanwhile, got five less (35) than their own season average. The Suns shot 72% in the first quarter, and finished with 48% for the game (40% the last three quarters). The Lakers shot 47.5% over the final three after shooting 25% (5-20) in the first.

Big wankin' deal.

Much of that 47.5% can be attributed to Kwame Brown being left alone when any other Laker got within 25 feet of the basket. No one rotated, and he got three straight dunks in the third quarter after allegedly spraining his ankle. Be honest...if YOU were playing and saw a guy go down like that, then watched as he limped back onto the court, you would have forgotten about him, too. I know I wouldn't have been too concerned about him.

Oops...my bad. Won't happen again. None of it will. How can it? Consider the untimeliness of this win for Los Angeles.

The Lakers poured their heart and soul into that game. They did things that they haven't done all season long. The Suns were pretty much blindsided by LA's energy, and could never regain their footing after they relaxed midway through the first quarter. (As we've seen so many times this season, once the Suns lose interest, they rarely get it back.) They found the intensity again eventually -- too little, too late. The Suns still only lost by six.

It's lost. You got to throw it out the window. You just brush off your shoulders and leave it behind. Live and learn.

- Shawn Marion

Exactly. And the Suns have three days to forget it. Three days to put it behind them. In the playoffs, three days is an eternity.

And the Lakers? They have three days to try and remember how they won the game. The Lakers - the team who, two days earlier, were feeling sorry for themselves and yelling at each other on the court. Who two days before that were doing the same thing. It is their modus operandi. It's who they are this year. A team with cellophane thin chemistry and erratic focus is supposed to remember how they won game 3?

Good luck with that.

Sunday's game 4 may be another dogfight, or it may be another blow out. One thing that it won't be is another Laker win. I can feel it, just like I felt the outcome before games 2 and 3.

Are you worried? I'm not.