The Suns' magical and memorable bench.

The Pacers-Heat series has been the best matchup of the second round, hands down. With Phoenix’s season over, I have no vested interest in any one team, but I still find myself pulling for the Pacers every time they take the court. At first, I dismissed this as the anti-Heat sentiment that seems to have permeated every corner of the NBA landscape save South Beach.

But as I watched Louis Amundson, Leandro Barbosa, and the rest of the Pacers’ reserves hold their ground against the surging Heat on Sunday, I flashed back to the 2010 playoffs and suddenly understood my support of Indiana.

Though there have been more talented squads during the Steve Nash era in Phoenix, the 2010 Suns team that made a surprise run to the Western Conference Finals is the sentimental favorite of many Phoenix fans. That team, which had missed the playoffs the previous season, wasn’t expected to do much that year. They ended up grabbing the third seed in the West and finished just three games behind the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers.

That team won a first-round playoff series for the first time in three years. Then they exorcised the demon that was the San Antonio Spurs with a stake-through-the-heart sweep. Then they came within a Kobe airball-Ron Artest putback of taking a 3-2 lead in the conference finals before losing Game 6 at home. To say that team overachieved is an understatement, but that only explains part of the fans’ love for them. Another major factor was the bench.

The reserves, the second unit, or “the other guys” — you can call them whatever you want. The five-man bench of Channing Frye, Louis Amundson, Jared Dudley, Leandro Barbosa, and Goran Dragic was one of the biggest reasons the Suns were so successful that year. What made them special was how they played as a unit. There are few teams in the league that can sit all five starters for periods of the game without totally imploding on the court. That Suns’ bench was different. They could not only hold a lead in an important game, they could extend it.

The best example of this was Game 3 of the second round against San Antonio. The Suns had taken the first two games of the series at home, but trailed by one heading into the fourth quarter. The second unit was on, spelling the starters (in researching this column, I realized that Grant Hill was on the floor in the fourth instead of Louis Amundson. Amundson was no doubt waving a towel very vigorously on the sidelines, though.)

Goran Dragic proceeded to score 23 points in the quarter. The Suns pulled away from the Spurs and won the game by 14. Though they still needed to notch another win to advance, the bench’s performance in that quarter won the series for Phoenix. San Antonio watched its lead slip away with Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash, and Jason Richardson on the bench. The Spurs knew right then and there they couldn’t win and bowed out of the postseason just one game later.

For Phoenix, that game took the team’s confidence to a whole new level. Sure, they had won six playoff games already, which was five more than they had won in the previous two seasons. But to finally best the Spurs and do it with an outstanding effort from 10 guys as opposed to just the All-Stars was a revelation to that team. That performance was what spurred them to make the series with the eventual-champion Lakers so hard fought. It was games like Game 3 in San Antonio that forever endeared that team to Phoenix fans everywhere.

Despite how you feel about the break up of that team the following summer, if you’re like me, you still enjoy watching all five of those guys play. Jared Dudley and Channing Frye have moved into the Suns’ starting lineup. Dudley has truly maximized his abilities and become a solid wing in the NBA. He had his best year as a pro this season, setting career highs in points, assists, and rebounds per game (for those of you who hate per game stats, he surpassed or came close to his career highs in the per-minute stat categories as well).

Channing Frye is still the rare combination of size and range that helped the Suns stretch defenses in 2010. However, he just had his worst season in a Suns uniform as his stats and shooting numbers were down across the board.

Goran Dragic aka The Dragon is about to make a lot of money for a skinny kid from Slovenia. Dragic played incredibly well for the Rockets this year especially when Kyle Lowry was hurt. He had career highs in points, assists, and PER. His play was almost enough to keep Houston in the playoff picture without their two best players. Goran will be the third-best point guard in this year’s free agent class behind Steve Nash and Deron Williams. He is also the youngest of the three.

And finally, as I mentioned before, Louis Amundson and Leandro Barbosa are still doing the things that made them fan favorites and integral members of the Suns’ squad. They just do them in Indianapolis now. Barbosa is still one of the fastest players in the league with the ball in his hands. He, along with teammate Darren Collison, provides speed, ball handling, and scoring off the bench for the Pacers. Amundson is still a gritty and energetic big man who grabs rebounds and throws the occasional elbow (sorry, Udonis). It’s a pleasure to watch these guys to continue to play hard as the Pacers fight to advance past the vaunted Heat and their pair of superstars.

Looking forward, the Suns should look to recapture the magic of that memorable bench unit. If this season has proven anything it’s that depth is king in the NBA. The Spurs, who have been the most dominant team in the postseason by far, go 10 players deep almost every single night. This depth allows them to save the legs of their older superstars.

If the Suns bring back Steve Nash and Grant Hill, the San Antonio recipe would be a good one to follow, and the Suns may already have some of the ingredients. Sebastian Telfair has shown he can be a solid backup point guard. Robin Lopez is a former starter who brings toughness and rebounding to a team much in need of both. Both players will continue to mature and carve out their roles on the team.

Michael Redd, if he returns, is a good bench scorer. He showed this season that he has recovered from the injuries that cost him almost three full seasons. Though he’s not back to the form that earned him a spot on the 2008 Redeem Team, he can still shoot, score, and compete in the NBA. Markieff Morris had a strong rookie campaign. He was definitely inconsistent, but that’s nothing new for rookies in the NBA. I think he’ll be a factor in Phoenix for a long time and could challenge for the starting PF spot this year.

This is where the questions about the Suns’ roster start to rise. Is Channing Frye better coming off the bench? The answer is most definitely maybe. Will the Suns keep Shannon Brown? Probably not. Brown played just well enough this season to get a multi-year deal from some team. If Lon Babby is true to his word about the franchise’s new spending strategy, that team will not be the Suns. Will Grant Hill reprise his role as defensive stopper/small forward? There is no way to tell. Injuries sidelined Hill for the last month of the season, and he is staring 40 right in the face. His future with the team will likely be tied to Nash’s, but that’s another column for another time. In the interim, I’ll be cheering for the Pacers, pulling for Dragic to land with a good team, and happily reminiscing about the most memorable bench there ever was.

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• Suns assistant coach Bill Cartwright will not be returning to the team next season, according to this report by Paul Coro, as the Suns have decided not to renew his contract for next season. This news will perhaps impact Robin Lopez the most. Cartwright was a mentor to the Suns’ young center, and Robin credits him with the improvements he’s made as a player. “I think actually it’s mostly come from Bill Cartwright,” Lopez said. Cartwright won three championships as a player with Michael Jordan and the Bulls. He has been an assistant coach in the NBA for 13 seasons.
• Be sure to catch Amundson in Battleship. For some reason he’s credited as Taylor Kitsch.

Bassy and the bench nearly rallied the Suns to a come-from-behind victory. (AP Photo/Lance Murphey)

Before Grant Hill’s injury, the Phoenix Suns’ usual starting lineup of Nash-Dudley-Hill-Frye-Gortat spent 745 minutes together on the floor (second in the NBA to Indiana’s starting five) and was better than any unit that played at least 300 minutes together (18 such lineups).

By beating their opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com’s advanced stats tool, the Suns’ starters were better than powerhouse lineups from teams such as Miami, Oklahoma City, the Lakers and the Clippers.

But as has been the case quite often in the past week without Hill, the Suns’ bench shined whereas the starters just didn’t get the job done tonight in a 104-93 loss to Memphis.

“I think it’s very similar to what happened in Denver,” Suns head coach Alvin Gentry told reporters. “We’ve got to do a better job finishing games, especially on the road. We play hard and we put ourselves in a position to have an opportunity to win a game, and you just have to finish it.”

As was the case in Denver when the Suns’ reserves made a fourth-quarter run to put Phoenix on top before the starters suffered through three scoreless minutes to close out the game, the reserves propelled the Suns on top with a 14-1 run that ended three minutes into the fourth with Phoenix taking a rare lead.

However, it did not last long because when Gentry brought three starters back (Nash, Gortat and Brown) three minutes later with the Suns down two they never got any closer.

Memphis promptly reeled off a 13-4 run (the first two points came against the bench) and with just two minutes remaining this game was over.

It surely sounds counterintuitive to play Sebastian Telfair and Robin Lopez over Nash and Gortat, but the bench found a rhythm that the starters could never capture.

In that way this game also resembled the Utah victory in that each and every starter finished in the negatives of plus/minus and all the reserves were in the positives. Particularly glaring is the fact that Nash was a team-worst minus 21 and Gortat minus 20 whereas Telfair was a team-high plus 10 and Lopez was plus 9.

Obviously that makes this an outlier game for Nash since he annually ranks among the league leaders in this department, but it just goes to show this wasn’t his finest game. It’s hard to fault Gentry for going back to Nash in crunch time based on what he’s done over the course of these past eight seasons, but Telfair was the better point guard tonight as in just 13 minutes he racked up seven points, eight assists and four boards along with a steal and a block.

As the Wins Produced stat would tell you, Telfair was abysmal in the first half of the season with a -0.157 WP48 mark that was worst on the team by a long shot and the kind of number that would say Bassy doesn’t belong in the league. But the second half has been a different story as his 0.124 WP48 means he’s playing above average basketball and in April his 0.333 WP48 is slightly better than Nash’s number and puts him an elite category for these seven games at least (small sample size, I know, just saying it’s been a good month for the Suns’ backup point guard).

During the nine games without Hill, the Suns’ starters have outscored their opponents by about 4.8 points per 100 possessions, which is very good but pales in comparison to what the primary bench unit has accomplished.

In 70 minutes over six games, the Telfair-Redd-Childress-Morris-Lopez has outscored opponents by a whopping 44.5 points per 100 possessions with an astounding offensive rating of 138.2 and a defensive rating of 93.7, including a 25-15 advantage in 10 minutes tonight. Small sample size again, but still an impressive stretch.

All of this data brings up the critical question of how best to integrate Hill when he returns Friday night for the showdown in Houston.

Aside from getting bludgeoned on the boards (Memphis won that battle 43-31 and grabbed 16 offensive caroms), the Suns lost in large part due to Rudy Gay’s 32 points on 13-of-20 shooting. He played 42 minutes and in that time Memphis beat the Suns by 23.

If Hill were healthy it stands to reason he would have done a better job on Gay than anyone the Suns tossed out there instead, and based on Phoenix’s inconsistency with the current starters and its prowess with the original lineup it stands to reason the starting lineup will be much better upon his return.

However, Shannon Brown has ignited the offense many times during these nine games, averaging a team-best 17.9 points and shooting 38.9 percent from three. He has seemed to play a bit more under control with the starters while providing a much-needed scoring boost.

With Hill back, Brown will presumably be relegated to the bench, but I really hate to break up that unit right now. After struggling to find any kind of continuity off the bench most of the season, the Telfair-Redd-Childress-Morris-Lopez unit just really works.

Telfair has been a superb floor general, Redd delivers the scoring, Childress slashes and defends (tonight he added a season-high 10 points during the first six minutes of the second quarter alone), Morris spaces and can go hard to the rack and Lopez defends the interior while getting his share of buckets around the rim.

So now Gentry needs to figure out how to add Hill to jumpstart the first unit and aid the defense and keep Brown heavily involved without messing up the thriving bench unit. It’s no enviable task but my suggestion would be to keep Brown in the starting lineup instead of Dudley, who can replace Childress in the bench alignment. It’s not a perfect suggestion since J-Chill has really contributed, but it comes closest to keeping what’s working intact.

Gentry better find the right combinations with Friday’s humongous game in Houston lingering. The loss really stings as the Suns dropped below Utah into 10th place in the West, two full games behind both the Rockets and Nuggets. If they don’t win on Friday, we can start talking about lottery balls for good.

The Suns are in that position because of a tough loss tonight in which the starters could not finish the rally the reserves started.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.

Kevin Love posted a silent 25-13 as the Suns blew out the Timberwolves. Copyright 2012 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Phoenix Suns were ruthlessly efficient from start to finish as they dismantled the Minnesota Timberwolves 114-90 Monday night. The Suns won for the fifth time in April thanks to 57 percent shooting from the field and 66 points from their bench. Kevin Love and the Timberwolves looked listless throughout the entire game and never got anything going on either end of the floor.

“I don’t know what it is,” Love told Suns.com. “They just shot the lights out of the ball. We didn’t commit hard enough fouls or get into guys like we should’ve…”

Love had perhaps the quietest 25-13 in the history of the NBA. He went just 1-for-6 from beyond the arc and turned the ball over four times. He finished the night 7-of-19 from the floor and had little to no impact on the game. Perhaps the most meaningful play for Love came at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Anyone who has watched the Suns this year knew that a 15-point lead meant nothing, especially with Love’s ability to get hot and score in bunches.

After struggling mightily to score for most of the game, Love closed the third with seven straight points and looked poised and ready to continue. The Wolves, knowing he was their only hope to close the gap, forced the ball to him on the opening two possessions of the fourth. Love turned the ball over twice and Phoenix capitalized with a Markieff Morris triple and break-away layup from Sebastian Telfair. The Suns went up 20 and never looked back.

Despite his incredible season, Love will have off games like this from time to time. There was something different about Love’s game tonight, though. He looked baffled by the Suns’ defense and played extremely tentatively. This is a welcome sight for Phoenix with Grant Hill out of the lineup. Containing an elite player like Love isn’t something the Suns can do every night, but it is great to know they are at least capable of an effort like this, especially with their best one-on-one defender in street clothes.

Also disappointing for the Wolves was Nikola Pekovic. The last time these two teams met, Pekovic dominated Marcin Gortat and the rest of the Suns’ frontcourt with 24 points and eight rebounds. He was nearly unstoppable in the post that night, and he looked to be planning an encore when he drew three fouls on Gortat in the first quarter.

That was Pekovic’s only meaningful run of play as he finished with 11 points and just two rebounds. In a game where the Wolves were looking for anyone to step up and assert themselves on either end of the floor, Pekovic was content to fade into the background. This is unacceptable for a big man with his kind of potential on a team missing one its signature players and in serious need of a partner for MVP candidate (but not contender) Kevin Love.

Really the only bright spot for Minnesota was J.J. Barea, who started in place of the injured Luke Ridnour. Barea was too quick for Steve Nash for most of the game. He scored 16 points and dished out five assists.

Overall, the Wolves simply did not come to play tonight and the Suns took full advantage.

Phoenix dominated despite quiet performances by its two best players. Steve Nash had 14 points, but recorded only five assists in his 26 minutes of action. Nash also recorded his 6th block of the season when he turned away Barea’s jumper at the end of the first quarter. Marcin Gortat had just four points and seven rebounds. He sat down after his third personal foul (all on Pekovic) with 23 seconds left in the first quarter, and played just 21 minutes in the game.

Shannon Brown and the bench were there, however, to pick up the slack. Brown had a very efficient night, scoring 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting. He also pulled down seven boards and handed out four assists. Though he took some ill-advised jumpers after it became clear Minnesota had no interest in mounting a comeback, Brown was solid for most of the game. His jump shot looked good in the first half, and he was able to penetrate and create against the Minnesota defense.

Brown has really stepped up in Grant Hill’s absence, and his confident and improved play has contributed to the Suns’ current winning ways as much as anything. This was Brown’s ninth straight game scoring in double figures.

The real story of the game though, was the play of the reserves. Everybody got in on the action for Phoenix. Markieff Morris was the standout performer with 21 points and six rebounds. He was efficient both inside and outside, and he, along with Robin Lopez, played strong defense on Kevin Love. When asked about the bench’s performance, Morris told Suns.com, “It’s great you know, especially if our first unit don’t start the game off great, we come in and try to pick the energy up, play as hard as possible and set the tone for them when they come back.”

Though he is still inconsistent, Markieff is proving, with nights like tonight, that he has a place in the Suns’ future so long as his ability and confidence continue to grow. In the back court, Michael Redd and Sebastian Telfair combined for 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting. The Wolves’ starters and reserves didn’t have an answer for Redd’s quick release jumper or Telfair’s Energizer Bunny-like ball-handling and penetration. These two are becoming a potent tandem and a great change of pace from Nash and the starters. It is tough for any team outside of the elite title contenders to defend both Nash and the Telfair-Redd duo for 48 minutes. This backcourt depth will be a huge asset for Phoenix as it hopes to realize its playoff dream.

Robin Lopez didn’t go off on the scoreboard or the glass, but his toughness, energy, and defense were crucial, especially with Gortat in foul trouble on the bench. He defended Kevin Love well and went toe-to-toe with the NBA’s second best rebounder on the glass. Lopez has shown all season that he isn’t afraid to play against anyone, which is a huge benefit for the Suns. Gortat, at times this year, has shied away from overly physical opponents like Dwight Howard or even Pekovic. In games like these, Phoenix will count on Lopez to anchor the frontcourt. He seems to have the mental toughness and energy to get the job done when he’s called upon for extended duty.

Even Grant Hill, who is still battling back from injury, got in on the action as he sat in with the ESPN announcers, perhaps giving us a glimpse of his future occupation. During the broadcast, Hill said his workouts have been going well, and that he hopes to be back soon. With Phoenix heading into its toughest stretch of the season, Hill’s presence in the lineup will be more than welcome.

The Suns could not have asked for a better way to start off their four-game road trip. Phoenix is three games over .500 for the first all season and sits ninth in the Western Conference standings, a game behind Dallas and Denver. Utah is hot on their heels only a half game behind and Houston in the sixth seed isn’t too far out of reach. Though the home stretch will likely be the toughest string of games the Suns have faced, the team has reason for hope.

Earlier this year and in seasons past, Phoenix was undone not by defeats at the hands of elite teams, but by careless losses to minnows at inopportune times. This team, however, is taking care of business and winning games it should win. Whereas the Suns might have been guilty of playing down to their opponents’ level in the past, the current squad gives their all night in and night out. Sometimes they lose to a good team, and sometimes, like tonight, they trounce a bad one. The difference is that there are no off nights. That is a playoff mentality. No off nights. The playoffs for the Suns started April 1. If the first six games are any indication, they may well live to play in May.

Steve Nash drilled the go-ahead bucket on a broken play to lead the Suns to a vital 107-105 victory over the Utah Jazz. (AP Photo/Jim Urquhart)

Ever since Amare Stoudemire left town, the Suns have lacked a go-to scorer, the kind of player teams rely on to get a bucket in crunch time when they need it most.

Well, apparently Steve Nash has added that responsibility to his already lengthy job description after drilling two go-ahead baskets in the final 14 seconds to lead Phoenix to a critical 107-105 victory over the Utah Jazz that vaulted the Suns past Utah into ninth place in the West, just a game behind Denver and Houston for the final two playoff spots in the West.

“You get the ball in his hands and you know he is going to get something good for his team,” Jazz head coach Tyrone Corbin told reporters. “He just gives you that confidence. He is who he is. He is a great player and he made great plays for them down the stretch. He made two big buckets to get them a win.”

With the game knotted up at 103 with 28 seconds remaining, Nash decided to call his own number instead of setting up his teammates as he often does a game after drilling two clutch jumpers in Sacramento to put the Suns up nine and essentially put the game away with 4:39 remaining.

Although he is not known for taking and making a lot of crunch time shots as he rarely goes into hero ball mode like so many other superstars, Nash got the lead-footed Al Jefferson to switch onto him on a pick and roll, continued to drive left and then executed a hard jump stop left to create space for a beautiful 17-foot jumper that did not hit the rim.

After Paul Millsap drove past Frye and found an open Jefferson under the rim for the tying basket, the Suns called Michael Redd’s number as the veteran had been hot tonight. Redd drove baseline but when he was double teamed he kicked it back out to Nash with just under five seconds remaining as the Utah defense scrambled to bottle Two Time up.

That did not happen as Nash somehow skirted past two defenders to take an off-balanced runner 17 feet from the hoop, which of course found the bottom of the net as well with 1.7 seconds remaining. Nash sauntered off the court with the look of a cold-blooded assassin on his face as teammates rushed to congratulate him.

“We ran a play to get Channing a shot and then Michael a shot and neither of them got it,” Nash said. “The ball kind of fumbled to me. I was able to get Millsap, I think, off his feet and I was able to lean in and just make one. I knew we didn’t have a ton of time, but I didn’t have to rush. I saw Gortat open under the basket, but I didn’t want to mess around with it.”

The Suns then held their breath as C.J. Miles hoisted a potential game-winning 3 from the corner that Millsap tipped it in yet the Suns were finally able to exhale and celebrate as the ball was clearly in his hands when the buzzer went off.

Phoenix seemed to have this game won when Frye banked in an off balanced 26-foot fadeaway to beat the shot clock buzzer and put the Suns up 103-98 with 1:06 remaining.

Yet the Jazz came right back as they had all game with a quick five points capped by a Jefferson jump shot and highlighted by Millsap picking Nash’s pocket.

The final flurry mirrored a chaotic game that saw every quarter played within two points with some big runs in between (the Suns led by nine in the second quarter and 10 midway through the fourth but the Jazz fought back every time).

The Suns’ bench was always in the middle of their runs as each reserve posted a positive +/- and each starter a negative one. Every backup played well tonight, and I cannot remember too many times that has happened this year.

Redd took over the lead scoring role off the pine with 19 points on 8-for-17 shooting a night after chipping in 16 in Sacramento. He was not bashful and his hot scoring night helped the Suns open up leads with Robin Lopez locking down the paint defensively and grabbing seven boards in 18 minutes.

Markieff Morris seemed to be everywhere in the first half when he scored all 11 of his points and provided a bundle of activity and Sebastian Telfair’s seven-point, two-assist fourth quarter put Phoenix in position to benefit from Nash’s heroics.

“It was huge,” Redd said of Phoenix’s bench play. “Again, it was a team win and we just try to pick up the slack with Grant not around. We just try to elevate our games. It was a great win, we just need to keep doing it.”

Redd’s bench scoring is so vital, especially with Shannon Brown in the starting lineup, because there are not many natural scorers in that reserve unit. When Redd can be that main second unit guy and with the rest of the bench players such solid defenders, all of a sudden you get a night like tonight when the bench won the Suns a critical road game.

To Gentry, the playoffs have already begun for Phoenix, but a win like this puts the Suns much closer to that goal.

The victory clinched the season series over the Jazz with one game still remaining on the penultimate night of the season in Utah. With the Suns now a half game ahead of the Jazz, that tiebreaker very well may come in play.

Phoenix now sits all alone in ninth place in the West and with the Nuggets inexplicably dropping a game in New Orleans tonight, the Suns trail both Houston and Denver by a mere one game for a playoff spot. They will face the Nuggets twice more and the Rockets once before the season ends, so those playoff spots are very much up for grabs for a Suns team that moved two games over .500 tonight for the first time all season.

“I think to be over .500 right now we’ve overachieved,” Nash said. “We are gaining confidence and we believe that we can keep winning. The spirit is good. Guys are sticking together and playing hard. When we were 12-19 it could have gone the other way. Obviously we hung together. The coaches have been phenomenal. We’ve stuck with it.

“We played hard and persevered and we are being rewarded for fighting hard.”

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Grant Hill will represent the professional game as one of three winners of “The Mannie Jackson – Basketball’s Human Spirit Award.” He will be recognized on Sept. 6 during a lead up to the Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies in Springfield, Mass.

According to a release, award winners must embrace “the core values of the game through hard work, dedication, and resilience; striving to continuously improve the community they serve, and making an ongoing commitment to others.  Beyond the game, award winners must reflect the values of Mannie Jackson’s life-long mission to overcome obstacles and challenge the status quo, while taking responsibility for personal actions and seeking the highest standard of excellence.”

Chauncey Billups and Samuel Dalembert have previously won the award. UConn head coach Jim Calhoun and Dr. Richard Lapchick, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics In Sport founder and director, will be honored this year with Hill as well.

“It’s a tremendous honor because of the award and what it stands for,” Hill told The Arizona Republic.

Steve Nash controlled the show a day before his 38th birthday by scoring 24 points and dishing 11 assists. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

There are many reasons why the Phoenix Suns’ offense has slipped from the heights of the elite all the way down to the bottom third of the league, but Channing Frye’s struggles have played a major role.

The Suns’ sharpshooter entered the day hitting 34.7 percent of his shots and 29.1 percent of his long balls, percentages that have hurt the Suns all year long.

But Monday night in Atlanta Frye showed why the Suns are a different team when he catches fire as Channing’s season-high 19 points on 8-for-16 shooting sparked the Suns to a 99-90 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

“I thought Channing shot the ball well, and when he does that, we’re pretty good,” Suns head coach Alvin Gentry told reporters.

Frye got the Suns started right by draining jumpers on their first two possessions. He opened the second half the same way with another pair of jumpers, and then in the fourth quarter when Atlanta cut a 22-point Phoenix lead down to nine, Frye came right back in at the three-minute mark and knocked down a pair of jumpers to salt this one away.

As Frye has struggled he’s become less and less a part of the offense. He attempted double-digit shots for just the fourth time all year and the first time since Jan. 13. Such is life when your box scores are lined with 1-for-6s, 0-for-7s, 2-for-8s and 1-for-9s as Frye’s are. He’s a streak shooter, and this year he’s only been streaking one way.

But tonight was different. From the tip Frye shot the ball with the kind of confidence that he did in 2009-10 and ended up hitting the two critical buckets Phoenix needed to prevent a meltdown.

In the meantime, Frye has been working on expanding other parts of his game so he won’t be known as “just a shooter,” which is particularly important when you can’t hit a shot. In this one Frye hit the backboards for nine caroms, blocked a pair of shots and even slammed home a putback dunk for good measure after his two clutch jumpers.

“I was getting down on myself, but I was trying to implement new things like going to the basket, being more aggressive with that,” Frye said on the Suns’ postgame show. “The games that I’m aggressive we tend to do good.

“I’m not out here just to be a shooter, I’m out here to be a complete player and do the best I can and tonight was one of those nights.”

It’s nice that Frye is adding dimensions to his game, but for the Suns’ offense to reach its potential they need Frye’s first dimension — shooting — to become a weapon once again.

Although it may come as a surprise that Frye produced such a good game, that’s certainly not the case for Steve Nash, who twirled another masterpiece a day before turning 38.

“Steve Nash never plays like his age,” Frye said.

Two Time carved the Hawks up for 24 points on 9-for-12 shooting (4-for-4 on threes) and dished 11 assists, with all but one of the dimes coming in the first three quarters when the Suns built a 20-point lead.

Nash’s most glamorous play came when he answered a Joe Johnson three with 3.8 seconds remaining in the first half by weaving through Atlanta’s defense before draining an off-balanced three-pointer at the halftime buzzer to keep Phoenix’s lead safely at seven at the break. It was a huge shot as it gave the Suns all the momentum heading into halftime despite Atlanta prefacing the super shot with a 14-4 spurt.

The Suns possessed such a lead because their bench continued its superb play from Saturday night during tonight’s first half. The reserves built a 16-point lead in the second quarter by exploding on a 14-2 run as the unit once again played with a special energy. Sebastian Telfair led the corps, most spectacularly on his alley-oop feed to Josh Childress, and all the bench players chipped in on the run.

“I thought we got good effort from our second unit,” Gentry said. “They were the ones who got the separation for us.

“It was a total team win, and I thought there were some guys who played real well.”

Although the Hawks have now lost three home games in a row, this certainly qualifies as another superb win in what is becoming an unpredictable Suns season. They’ve now won on the home courts of three potential East playoff teams (Atlanta, Boston, New York) on top of beating Portland and Memphis at home despite losing to the likes of New Orleans, Toronto, New Jersey and Cleveland in US Airways Center.

This was no fluke win, either. The Suns controlled the game throughout, and although Atlanta made a run like most NBA teams do, Phoenix led comfortably during the majority of the final three quarters.

The Suns have now won three of four games in February and could be on the verge of turning their season around. But every time the Suns have strung a few solid games together, inconsistency has lurked just around the corner as Phoenix will shoot for its very first three-game winning streak of the season tomorrow night in Milwaukee.

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The Suns’ defense played a major role in this victory by holding the Hawks to 39.3 percent shooting, including 25.0 percent (6-for-24) from long range. … They also won the battle of the boards, 45-35, with Marcin Gortat (nine) and Markieff Morris (seven) chipping in along with Frye. Gortat did see his streak of consecutive double-digit rebound games end at 15. … Michael Redd contributed 10 points on 3-for-9 shooting off the pine. … Shannon Brown, Ronnie Price and Hakim Warrick all did not play by coach’s decision. Warrick received a DNP-CD Saturday night as well when Price logged just four minutes.

After signing Michael Redd on Thursday, the Phoenix Suns’ roster will house 13 players with a legitimate gripe for rotation minutes once Redd is ready to take the floor, which means Alvin Gentry has quite the task on his hands to figure out which players deserve time and which players must be relegated to mop-up duty.

When Mike D’Antoni coached the Suns he barely played half that many players each game, and last season Gentry spoke of how 11 was too many to play consistently as much as he likes using his entire bench.

With 66 games crammed into four months and nights when Steve Nash and Grant Hill will likely take it easy, the Suns will likely rely on their deep reserves more often than they usually would, but if the Suns want to build bench chemistry I feel they need to settle on 10 players to receive the majority of minutes on a night in/night out basis.

That would involve the team trimming three players from its rotation. Ronnie Price and Sebastian Telfair are the backup point guards, with Price getting the majority of the minutes thus far. Hakim Warrick went from a DNP-CD to 32 minutes of action. He doesn’t seem to have a position with Markieff Morris deserving time at the backup four, but with his scoring punch he figures to earn some time as the season goes on.

And now the Suns are back in the same spot they were in last season with five wings for four spots (before considering Warrick as a potential three) when the additions of Vince Carter and Mickael Pietrus squeezed Josh Childress out of the rotation.

If Redd is right, he will play. This is a guy who averaged 20 points per game over an 11-year career. I’m not sure if he will start because a Nash-Redd starting lineup would fly in the face of the Suns’ desire to improve defensively, and he could end up being the main scorer on a bench that lacks punch. Many of the reserves are solid enough defensively to make up for Redd’s deficiencies on that end and in turn he could potentially carry the offense for stretches off the pine.

Wednesday’s -32 notwithstanding, Jared Dudley will be playing consistent minutes this season and Hill will as well, although it would not be a surprise to see his floor time cut a bit to preserve his health through this mad dash of a season.

So if Redd plays well enough to be a rotation player that means Shannon Brown and Childress are likely battling for a spot. Neither player has been particularly impressive thus far although it would be kind of a shame for both players individually to lose their spot, Brown since he came here on a cheap one-year deal to rebuild his value and Childress because this happened to him last season and the Suns need to see what they have before making an amnesty decision on him next summer.

Such depth can be a blessing and a curse, a blessing because depth will be a requirement during this jam-packed schedule but a curse if there’s not enough quality depth and defined roles fail to materialize

Gentry showed a Midas Touch developing his bench and guiding his rotations in 2009-10, but he’s got a much tougher job making this collection of pieces work.

The Warlocks’ effect

Entering the free agency period, Michael Redd was my pick to fill the Suns’ backup shooting guard spot, as I wrote in our free agency 3-on-3.

The biggest reason was that I felt Redd possessed the most upside to emulate the go-to scorer the Suns so desperately need for stretches at a time because he has done it so often before.

And the biggest reason I thought there was a chance Redd could become even a facsimile of his Olympic self is because of Aaron Nelson and the Suns’ training staff, which Redd himself cited as one of the things that drew him to this organization.

The Warlocks have worked wonders on so many vets from Nash to Hill to Shaq that the Suns should feel extra confident taking a chance on a player like Redd who could become an important rotation player if the Suns’ trainers keep him healthy.

I had a chance to sit down and chat with Nelson toward the end of last season and I asked him if he ever wonders if his staff can make a difference for a chronically injured player.

“You always wonder, and again if you fail then it goes the other way,” Nelson said. “I like challenges, and my staff likes challenges. We like to see what we can do and what we’re capable of doing, and when I see injured players for other teams I feel for my peers because we’re all in the same boat. The guys who are paid a lot of money and normally are playing a lot of minutes for you, when they get hurt that’s a lot of pressure and a lot of stress for us and the other head athletic trainers for the other teams. I don’t look at it and say, ‘I can do better than them.’ I think we’re all in the same boat. I don’t look at it in that perspective, I look at it as if my GM calls me and says, ‘Hey, if we have this guy on our team,’ then I think about it. But I don’t think outside of that.

“If I’m watching SportsCenter and so and so has been out now for whatever I think that I feel bad for my peers that are having to deal with it because I have to deal with it when our guys get hurt, but again if our GM or owner says, ‘Hey, if we’re looking at Player X, do you think you can help him?’ Immediately I start thinking, ‘OK, yeah.’”

Nelson and crew have a new challenge ahead of them when they aren’t focusing on maintaining the health of Nash and Hill, and if they succeed the Suns’ offense will receive a much-needed boost at a veteran’s minimum price.

But aside from the pick-and-roll run by those two stars, that Suns team succeeded most because it went 10 deep with a defensive-focused second unit that gave opponents a completely different look than the high-octane starters.

Time and time again the bench turned deficits into advantages or extended leads built by the starters.

All of the backups understood their roles and executed them to perfection more often that not.

Aside from obvious factors like losing Amare and later Jason Richardson, one of the biggest reasons the Suns plummeted last season is they never could find any rhythm with their bench. Through the two in-season trades and a starting lineup that never solidified, players shuffled between different roles without the bench unit forming any kind of identity like they did the year before.

As the Suns prepare for this 66-game sprint of a regular season, they understand how vital their bench is if they want to become a surprise team in the West like they were two years ago.

“One thing that we’ve done around here is we’ve always tried to play nine, 10 guys,” said head coach Alvin Gentry. “I think it’s going to be very important this year that you have a deep bench because there are going to be certain situations where you play five games in seven nights or six games in nine nights where it’s going to be really important to have depth so you’re not burning guys out.

“I think you’ve got to be really careful that 30 games in you’re haven’t burned players out, so we have to keep a closer eye on that and be able to use our bench and develop guys that are going to be able to not only come in and play but play effectively for us.”

With so many back-to-backs and even a pair of back-to-back-to-backs, there will be nights when the Suns will need to rest a Nash or a Hill or just limit their minutes. Even younger players like Marcin Gortat and Jared Dudley must not play so many minutes that it affects them later in the season.

“We can’t be in a situation where we’re playing guys 40 minutes a night,” Gentry said. “It’s just not going to work out. … I can’t see how anybody’s going to do that.”

To this end, whereas the Suns lack blue chip talent after Nash, they do feature a slew of role players who could mesh into an effective bench unit.

If Robin Lopez is as healthy as the Suns seem to think, he should be one of the league’s better backup centers. Markieff Morris should help on the boards and in the post on defense as well as provide a floor spacing presence on offense. Josh Childress is an elite slasher. Shannon Brown (if he does not beat out Jared Dudley for the starting spot) is a dynamic presence in the open court. Ronnie Price provides defense and Sebastian Telfair can run a team although the winner of the backup point guard battle once again will represent a steep dropoff from Nash.

That’s not even counting Hakim Warrick, who has played well in training camp and could give the Suns an offensive boost on any given night.

It’s not a stretch to think the Suns will go 12 deep this season, with players like Price and Warrick providing a lift when the matchup is right.

“We’re excited, we have a little more depth this year,” Nash said. “I think for every team depth is going to be a huge part of a team trying to get into the playoffs or trying to exceed expectations, trying to make it through this schedule. We’ve tried to bring some depth in, and I think we’ve succeeded.”

Just like in 2009-10, the calling card of this bench mob figures to be defense. Aside from Warrick, every player on the bench rates as at least a solid defender.

It’s common in the NBA for teams to go only eight players deep, and when Mike D’Antoni ran the show in Phoenix he often played only seven key guys.

But with 66 games in 123 days more teams figure to emulate the 2009-10 Suns than the 2004-05 Suns, which means Phoenix’s bench will likely log more minutes against opposing bench players than they have in the past.

That could give Phoenix a major advantage if their bench can come close to reaching the level of their elite reserve corps from two years ago.

“Guys are going to be tired, a lot of minutes are going to be played in a short amount of days,” Price said. “So having a deep bench is very important, and this team has that.”

Suns

Hornets

The Phoenix Suns expected everything to be on the line tonight against a New Orleans Hornets squad that two weeks ago they seemed to have a legitimate chance of catching.

At the time the Suns still were seeking a miracle, but it seemed to be a doable miracle if the team were to get hot down the stretch as they did a year ago.

A victory over the Hornets back on March 25 in US Airways Center would have brought them within two games of New Orleans in the loss column with this game still to go. Sure, the Suns’ stretch run has been daunting, but that’s a doable scenario since Phoenix would have owned the tiebreaker by winning on March 25 and tonight.

Instead the Hornets put the Suns’ season into checkmate in a game Alvin Gentry feels his Suns would have won if not for the unfortuitous collision between Steve Nash and Marcin Gortat that knocked the Suns’ center out of the game late in the third quarter with a fractured nose when he had already posted a double-double.

The bottom fell out after that with Phoenix losing six of seven starting with the Hornets loss before Wednesday’s win in Minnesota once realistic postseason aspirations had all but ended.

The Suns still have somewhat of a chance to play the spoiler role with New Orleans currently sitting seventh in the West, just a half game behind Portland for sixth and a game up on No. 8 Memphis.

The Hornets have posted a 4-2 mark since leading scorer and second-leading rebounder David West went down with a torn ACL, including Wednesday’s win over Houston that clinched a playoff spot.

That stretch started with New Orleans’ win over the Suns two weeks ago, a game in which Chris Paul took over late and Carl Landry replaced much of West’s production with 19 points and six boards, almost exactly what West produces on an average night.

On the Phoenix side it’s more of the same, just continuing to build continuity for next season.

It was nice to see Alvin Gentry leave his bench in Wednesday’s game until the finish to give those guys an opportunity to play in pressure situations (or as close to a pressure situation as you can get at this point in the year).

I’ve enjoyed getting a taste of what Josh Childress can bring to this squad. All along I’ve felt it was unfortunate that he became the 11th man in a 10-man rotation, the Earl Clark role if you will, although it was understandable since the other wings spaced better for Nash. Childress was all over the place against Minnesota, his best sequence coming in the second quarter when he scored a layup falling out of bounds and then recovered to steal the inbounds pass and dunk it.

We’re also getting to see Aaron Brooks develop more of a rapport with his teammates and most of the reserves start to find some of the rhythm they have lacked as a unit all season (except for Robin Lopez, of course).

With wins and losses no longer mattering, it will be good for the bench to log more important minutes tonight against a team in playoff mode.

UPDATE: Nash will sit tonight

According to The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro, Steve Nash will miss tonight’s game “due to a hamstring issue that has come up on top of his recent flu bout and ongoing pubic symphysis problem.” That will allow the Suns to take a longer look at Brooks in this one as well as find some quality minutes for Zabian Dowdell. Coro also reported that Jared Dudley is “promising” the much-ballyhooed dunk No. 10 tonight.

Hakim Warrick helped the bench unit total 58 points in Wednesday's win over Minnesota. (AP Photo/Tom Olmscheid)

With the playoffs out of the question and nothing tangible to play for, it’s up to the Phoenix Suns’ bench and role players to rack up victories as the season comes to a close.

Although it came against the NBA’s worst team without its best player in Kevin Love, the Suns’ second unit rose to the occasion on Wednesday night as Phoenix defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves, 108-98.

Steve Nash and Grant Hill played a combined 39 minutes and every starter aside from Marcin Gortat sat for the entire fourth quarter as they watched Aaron Brooks, Josh Childress, Vince Carter and Hakim Warrick take care of the lowly T-Wolves.

Hill scored 17 points in 19 minutes and Gortat had a monster game with 20 points and 16 boards in a team-high 32 minutes, but it was the bench that should be credited with the win.

The second unit combined for 58 points, all of which came from Brooks, Carter, Childress and Warrick.

The bench mob that’s struggled at times this season did a nice job fending off Minnesota down the stretch as they never let the five-point lead they took into the fourth shrink down below four.

Brooks was a huge reason why, as he controlled the tempo and scored 10 of his 19 points in the final period, making all four of his shots while dishing out three of his six dimes to boot.

Tonight was Brooks’ best performance since his 25-point, eight-assist outburst against the Raptors, and easily his second most efficient performance as he made 8-of-13 shots and turned the ball over only twice in 26 minutes. It came against Luke Ridnour and a laughable Minnesota squad, but maybe the Suns have reason to believe in Brooks as the point guard after the Nash era.

Childress, Gortat, Carter and Warrick did the rest of the Suns’ fourth-quarter scoring, which was Phoenix’s downfall all season long. But it wasn’t only the fourth quarter where the bench mob shined.

After the starters limped through the first quarter to take a 26-23 lead at the end of one, the bench pushed the Suns’ lead to 15 — their biggest of the game — with 3:34 left in the quarter.

Much like the fourth quarter, Carter, Warrick, Brooks and Childress combined for all 30 of the Suns’ second-quarter points, even though they also allowed 30 points and took only a three-point lead into halftime.

The defense wasn’t stellar, but those four bench players — plus Gortat — got it done with the starters on the bench. Warrick played as aggressive as he has in a long time, scoring 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting including a few rim-rattling slams.

Carter also impressed, following up his 23-point game against the Bulls with 12 points and four boards. But it wasn’t his stats that turned heads, but rather a pair of dunks — one following a reverse spin where he planted both feet and threw it down with two hands and another one-handed slam off an alley-oop.

And finally there was Childress, who once again played an efficient all-around game, scoring 10 points off of 5-of-6 shooting while grabbing four rebounds, dishing out three assists and collecting three steals.

In addition to the four bench standouts, Gortat played another Gortat-like game, grabbing 36.3 percent of the Suns’ total rebounds and shooting 8-for-14 from the field to collect his sixth double-double in eight games. He’s averaging 11.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks over his last five games and continues to be one of the few silver linings to come from this season.

It’s hard to find positives out of a victory over the NBA’s worst team when the playoffs are out of the equation, but the play of the Suns’ bench and Gortat’s continual dominance give Phoenix something to smile about with four games remaining in a disappointing 2010-11 campaign.

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Garret Siler, not Robin Lopez, was the first big man off of the bench for the Suns. Siler played only two minutes, however, committing a turnover and scoring zero points and grabbing zero rebounds. … Although it seems impossible to be worse than that stat line, Lopez was. He went 0-for-3 and picked up three fouls in six minutes. But the stats didn’t even tell the story. He airballed a 16-foot jumper, got swatted at the rim by Wesley Johnson on a ball that he should have easily dunked but instead went for a weak left hook, and got embarrassed defensively on a lob feed when he didn’t jump. The seven-footer’s regression remains the biggest mystery of the season.

PHOENIX — In Mathletics, former Mavericks stats guru Wayne Winston found that playing on the second game of a back-to-back makes an NBA team play two points worse than average.

If only Winston could come up with a formula that would determine how much worse a team would be expected to play when its best players log 57, 53 and 49 minutes the night before in a crushing triple overtime loss to their rivals and then their two best perimeter defenders can’t make it through the first half. Then we would know what the Suns were up against Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors.

In a game the Suns absolutely had to win to keep pace with the Memphis Grizzlies, who won in Boston to stay three games up for the final playoff spot, Phoenix required a total team effort to earn what Alvin Gentry called the squad’s best win of the season, 114-106 over the Toronto Raptors.

On the surface it may be a surprise for Gentry to say that about a game Phoenix didn’t play all that well in against a team that’s now 31 games below .500.

But he made the statement because the Suns used all 12 active players while the game was still in doubt and everybody from Aaron Brooks to Zabian Dowdell to Josh Childress made a contribution when called upon.

“Everybody always says it’s a team effort, but today it really was,” Jared Dudley said. “It was a team effort, and we did enough to win basically.”

Added Gentry, “That was a total team effort right there. I thought everybody that came in did a little something to help the team and that’s what was really good about it. After last night and the emotional drain, then coming away with nothing really tangible to show for the effort that we gave, I just thought it was great to come back and put in that kind of effort and be able to win the game.”

Nothing about this game was quite typical, starting with Nash’s exit midway through the first quarter that resulted in Two Time sitting for the rest of the half. Hill took a rest then as well and was later sent home he was so exhausted, and two minutes into his stint Pietrus sprained his knee and walked off the court onto the baseline while an open Raptor scored a layup. He did not return.

Midway through the second half Gentry teamed Nash with Brooks in the backcourt, as the Suns went to a matchup zone to hide their lack of size at the guard spots. Brooks (team-high plus 21 in 34 minutes) remained in for the rest of the game as Vince Carter (-11 in 20 minutes) sat and the Suns went with a Brooks-Dowdell backcourt for almost nine crucial minutes of a second half the team had to win.

The Suns trailed 84-71 with 3:21 left in the third, but they reeled off a 15-2 run to end the period capped by a Brooks layup at the buzzer to head into the fourth quarter tied.

Things seemed lost once again when the Suns trailed by six with 4:25 remaining, but Phoenix raced out to a 17-3 advantage the rest of the way, hitting 6-of-8 shots while holding Toronto to 1-of-9 shooting.

Brooks was the catalyst, scoring 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting while dishing eight assists. He created plays, he attacked for his own offense, and he spotted up for threes when playing with Nash, including a dagger of a trey to put the Suns up five with 54.9 left.

“Obviously that was his best game as a Sun,” Gentry said of Brooks. “I thought he was just so aggressive and really feeling a lot more comfortable with what we’re doing.”

Gentry told Brooks to attack more and that he would likely play a bigger role in this one after Nash played 49 minutes the night before, but Brooks didn’t expect to enter so early in a game Nash played just 21:30 of.

This game typified why the Suns swapped backup point guards. On nights Nash can’t carry the load throughout a ballgame, Brooks is in the bullpen waiting to do some damage.

“This was a must-win game. We knew the importance of this game,” Brooks said. “We came in and we did our job. [The starters] carried the torch in the Lakers game for an hour, and it was our turn to come in there and do our jobs. We knew we had to keep it close for the end of the game, get Nash back in there to close it out, so that’s what we did.”

Gentry joked that Frye and Gortat are about to kill him after Frye played nearly 100 minutes on consecutive days (40 tonight) and Gortat added 33 minutes to his 53 a night before.

Dudley was the ironman of the night with 42 minutes of action for a Suns team that suddenly needed all that depth at the wing spot when Hill and Pietrus left early.

It was an unenviable task both physically and certainly mentally to move past a game in which so much emotional energy was invested to grind out a win against a bad team they just had to beat, and while it wasn’t always easy that’s exactly what the Suns did.

“Man, let me tell you, it was no joke,” Frye said. “Grant leaving, now our rotation got even shorter. I felt that Coach did a good job of just making sure guys were getting rotated in. For us it just shows guys are ready to play and they want to win.

“I guess that’s why you run all them lines in training camp, and I think this was one of our better wins. It’s just a good win for us, guys stepped up.”

A Sweet 16 wager

Hill likes to say he doesn’t pay attention to Duke basketball until April, but apparently he’s taking notice a week earlier this year.

Hill and the former Wildcat Frye will take in Thursday’s Sweet 16 showdown from the residence of owner Robert Sarver, another Wildcat alum, along with the rest of the team.

Frye and Hill have a friendly wager on the game that involves the player from the losing school having to wear gear from the winning school.

Frye made the same bet with Josh Childress before the UA-Stanford football this season and found himself in a Cardinal Snuggie when all was said and done.

A St. Mary’s love tap

Jerryd Bayless received a flagrant foul for shoving Frye and both received technicals for the mini-altercation. Frye and Bayless know each other well since both players went to the same high school (Phoenix St. Mary’s) and college (Arizona), and Frye actually played high school ball with Bayless’ older brother.

Frye set some vicious screens on Bayless in the playoffs last season when Jerryd was a Blazer, so there’s certainly a bit of a rivalry between these two Knights/Wildcats.

Frye did not want to comment after the game.

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This contest marked the return of Leandro Barbosa to the desert. LB went for 14 on 6-for-11 shooting in 22 minutes of action. … The Suns have won 14 in a row against Toronto, the club’s longest active winning streak. They have thus swept the series seven years running, ever since Nash returned to town. … The Suns are 6-2 after overtime games this season. Phoenix has won four games in a row that have followed triple overtime contests. They became the first squad since the Heat and Jazz on March 15, 2009, to win after playing in triple OT. … The Suns’ 12 threes are their most on the second game of a back-to-back this season. … Phoenix scored 114.2 points per 100 possessions Tuesday against the Lakers, far and away Los Angeles’ worst defensive performance since the break. Only their Miami loss (110.6) was particularly close to that mark.