Suns seek to avoid bring burned by Lakers

You have to give Ron-Ron credit, of the 10 players on the floor watching Kobe Bryant’s shot attempt to win another game, he was the only that realized it was going to land short of its destination, ran towards the ball, grabbed it and put in the basket to set off wild celebration by the ultra-cool movie and TV stars who realized this wasn’t scripted.

Ron Artest saved the day despite faulty vision, “I thought Kobe got fouled on the shot, so I figured it was going to be short,” Artest said. “And it was a little short.”

The series moves to its first elimination matchup and Phoenix made be down, but they certainly are not out.

As the new Philadelphia 76ers coach and analyst Doug Collins correctly pointed out, it felt like the Lakers were ahead by 15 points when they led by just eight midway thru the fourth quarter.

Coach Phil Jackson made a series of key adjustments before Game 5, running unbalanced overload against the Phoenix zone and running cutters weakside once the ball was passed into the lane area. The Suns tried a 1-3-1 changeup, but players and coaches at this level crave up a cheap gimmick like that in no time.

Lamar Odom returned to being aggressive and he and Derek Fisher drove thru the Phoenix zone like “CHIPS” with traffic stopped. All this led to a procession of layups and easy buckets.
Coach Alvin Gentry’s zone isn’t designed to disable the Los Angeles, rather to hopefully force up bad shot attempts along with normal misses. The Lakers will head to the sun drenched desert 13-4 ATS after two straight games committing 11 or less turnovers this season.

The final minutes of Game 5 spoke loudly about both teams. Phoenix was unwilling to quit, especially Steve Nash. The Lakers had taken away aspects of the Canadien’s ability to use the screen and roll effectively, by jumping big men at him and setting up “wall” with Derek Fisher going underneath. Upon his return in the final minutes, Nash took matters into his own hands by taking and making shots, which caused vacillation by the Lakers bigs and gave him just enough room to operate.

Overall Los Angeles may be taller, but lack the lateral quickness to rotate back if Nash goes into the Lakers forest of tall timber. L.A. also showed a common flaw of this team, similar to the one that cost them to lose to Boston in the finals two years ago, a killer instinct. Artest’s ridiculous three-point attempt and other less the precise offensive sets enabled the more determined team late in the contest to almost steal one.

The Suns are 11-3 ATS at home off a road loss and need a few elements to occur to force a Memorial Day matchup.

Amare Stoudemire needs another bust-out effort like Game 3. A total of 40+ points isn’t required, however that same type of aggressiveness and rebounding desire is. Phoenix is going to shoot three-pointers regardless, thus the number made isn’t as important as the percentage, which has to be above 30 percent.

Channing Frye and Jared Dudley have found a comfortable rhythm in the West Finals; however Leandro Barbosa and Goran Dragic cannot be outscored by Shannon Brown and Sasha Vujacic like they were in the last contest (7-5).

The Suns are 1.5-point pick and are 9-1 ATS at U.S. Airways Arena after a loss by six points or less. The last game saw the first total go below the number in the series and the home team fail to cover. The oddsmakers have adjusted the total downward to 216, nevertheless Los Angeles is 7-0 OVER in the purple uniforms after allowing 100 points or more in exactly two straight tilts and Phoenix is 15-5 OVER at Planet Orange versus good shooting teams making 46 or more of their shots since the midpoint of the season the previous two years.

Game Six has been moved up to 8:30 Eastern on TNT as the Lakers try to close out the series. They are away 17-6 ATS away from home having lost two of their last three games.

Lakers attempt to regain upper hand

What’s the old saying, “When mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy”. A form of that saying is taking place in the Los Angeles Lakers locker room, with Kobe Bryant taking the place of mama.

“We have to play with a sense of urgency,” Bryant said after his team lost in the desert for second time, “and understand this team can beat us.”

Kobe, when asked what was wrong, didn’t mince words and tersely stated his feelings. “We lost the game,” Bryant said, “because our defense sucked.

“Our focus was on the other side of the floor, which doesn’t win championships. So we need to get back to ground zero when it comes to that.”

That’s the conundrum with the 2009-10 Lakers squad, every good stretch of basketball means “Margaritaville” and the passion and intensity necessary dwindles with prosperity.

Bryant had 74 points, 21 assists and 16 rebounds in two games in downtown Phoenix, but didn’t get enough assistance from his supporting cast.

“Kobe had a great game,” Lamar Odom said about Game 4. “Too bad we weren’t able to come along with him.”

Los Angeles returns to the Staples Center where they are 41-7 (21-26-1 ATS) this season and needs to reestablish control of the series which is tied at 2-2.

The Lakers are 12-3 ATS after three or more consecutive Over’s this year and while Kobe is complaining about the defensive effort, other wonder if the Suns zone defense has gotten into the heads of L.A. players.

"It's the zone," Lakers center Andrew Bynum admitted. "We're settling for outside jump shots. They were out there moving that ball, they were confident playing at home and they really just shot the ball well. They had everybody spaced out so everybody's running around."

Though, as coach Phil Jackson pointed out, his team has shot 48.3 and 49.5 percent in the last two losses while averaging 107.5 points per game, but does some of the hesitation on the Lakers offense carry over unto the defensive end, causing lapses in concentration for a club not known for “Terminator” single-mindedness.

What the Lakers zone offense has also lacked is getting the ball into high post consistently, with cutters running baseline or weakside cutters slashing to the rim. While Ron Artest is still a fine defensive player, the loss of Trevor Ariza hurts the Lakers in this situation, since he has greater quickness, understands how to cut more effectively to the basket and is a more consistent three-point shooter than Artest.

Phoenix is bubbling with confidence and is 14-6 ATS in road encounters after a combined score of 205 points or more in a trio of tilts this season. Channing Frye found his misplaced jump shot and the Suns reserves lambasted the Lakers bench 54-20 after being mildly ineffective for the first three games. "The bench played fantastic," the Suns' Steve Nash said.

Coach Alvin Gentry is earning his coaching “onions” as he left his bench players in the game for almost nine minutes of the final quarter, since they had produced 18-3 run, essentially putting Los Angeles away.

"We believe in those guys and they really believe in themselves," Gentry said. "I thought they were much better defensively than they were offensively, and they were great offensively."

Though no Phoenix player would publicly admit this, they know a Game 5 upset gives them best chance to win the series with Saturday’s conflict back at Planet Orange. A Game 7 win in L.A. would a monumental task to pull off for Phoenix.

Sportsbooks have the Lakers as 7.5-point pick, with total of 218. Pau Gasol and the rest of his teammates have to play like they did during eight-game postseason winning streak (7-1 ATS) and they are 18-5 ATS when tied in a playoff series since 1996. The Suns are 33-14 ATS after allowing 105 points or more and will have to solve the Los Angeles team in the yellow uniforms since they are 1-7 and 2-6 ATS in L.A.

TNT continues with the series at 9:00 Eastern and the Lake Show is 8-0 OVER after two straight games where both teams scored 100 points or more this season.