PHOENIX — Goran Dragic made a name for himself feasting on opposing bench units two years ago in US Airways Center.

The Dragon returned to the scene of the crime Thursday and pulled the trick once again, leading a Rockets bench that was the difference in Houston’s 96-89 win over the Suns as was so often the case for Phoenix’s special 2009-10 reserve unit.

“Their bench came in and did a great job as they did last night,” said Suns head coach Alvin Gentry, whose team’s three-game winning streak ended. “You have to match that energy level. Their second unit really is the one that controlled the game.”

Houston’s reserves outscored the Suns’ bench 57-13, with all but two of Phoenix’s bench points coming courtesy of Michael Redd.

Meanwhile, all five Rockets bench players (Dragic, former UA stars Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill, Patrick Patterson and Courtney Lee) reached double figures. The Rockets gained a game-high 29 points in Dragic’s 29 minutes, while Budinger was a plus 25 and Patterson plus 22.

The Houston bench wrested control of the game in the second quarter with a 13-0 spurt that helped the Rockets lead by 10 at the half. Kevin McHale went back to his bench five minutes into the second half when the Suns fought back to regain the lead, and then Dragic and Budinger joined three starters for a late 8-0 Rockets run that put Houston up seven with just over three minutes remaining.

Dragic finished with 11 points and a season-high-tying 11 assists while sparking the Houston reserve corps with the kind of energy Suns fans are so accustomed to.

“I think Goran’s been great, particularly two years ago for us he played as well as he’s playing now, so I think he’s always had it in him and he’s got a chance to be a really, really good player,” said Suns guard Steve Nash, his former mentor. “He played well tonight, I think he’s playing well consistently for them, but I think the best is still to come for him.  He’s got a lot of talent, he’s competitive and he works hard, so obviously a lot of us believe in him and are rooting for him.”

The Rockets’ bench prowess made the Suns’ off game off the pine all the more glaring. Due to their ineffectiveness, only Redd played more than 13 minutes as every starter logged at least 30 and Frye and Gortat were over 40. Robin Lopez and Markieff Morris played six and a half minutes, and Shannon Brown, Ronnie Price and Hakim Warrick once again didn’t even play.

Aside from the bench issues, Phoenix also lost this game on the backboards.

Gentry could not get over the fact that the Rockets scored 22 second-chance points (20 in the first half) off their 12 offensive boards whereas Phoenix scored just six off five offensive caroms.

“You can’t give up 22 points on second-chance points and have six,” Gentry said. “That’s just too much of a discrepancy there. The thing that’s so disheartening about it is that first possessions we played great, they shot in the 30s and second-chance points they ended up shooting 48 percent because of second-chance points. I thought we battled and did a good job, but we have to find a way to come up with the ball.”

No single Rocket destroyed the Suns on the glass, but as seems to be the case with everything about Houston they did this as a team. Five players grabbed either six or seven boards but nobody hit the glass for more than that (the two leading rebounders in the game were actually Frye with 10 and Gortat with nine). However, Luis Scola (five) and Samuel Dalembert (three) were bears on the offensive glass.

“We gave up tons of offensive rebounds,” Gortat said. “I’ve got to play better.

“Personally I don’t know what I was doing the first five minutes. I was sleeping out there, I guess. I didn’t play really hard. They had a couple offensive rebounds, we could have easily had 12-point lead, and that’s how it is.”

Added Frye, “They established they were going to get on the glass early,” Frye said.

Despite all the rebounding issues and the bench disparity, the Suns actually led by a point with 6:10 left when Nash banked in one of his seven field goals (on seven attempts).

But poor execution that led to six turnovers followed to seal the Suns’ fate as they went scoreless for nearly four minutes.

“I think we just didn’t execute down the stretch,” Frye said. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make every play and be perfect at the end, and we can’t do that. We have to make sure we are in a good rhythm and establish how we’re going to play in the first half.”

Nash called this “a really disappointing loss” being that the Suns had seemed to find their mojo on the recent road trip whereas Houston was getting in late after a hard-fought game in Portland last night (you might remember how things ended up when the Blazers made such a trip on short rest).

Nash called it “a winnable game,” yet the Suns could not extend their winning streak to four because there were too many plays in which they were “mentally switched off,” as Nash put it.

Now the Suns must confront a reality in which their 5-7 home record is holding back a team that boasts a very respectable 6-8 road mark. Good teams go 6-8 on the road – in fact the Suns possess the West’s sixth-best road record ahead of teams like the Lakers, Spurs and Blazers — but only the lowly Hornets are worse at home.

This must be killing Gentry because every year he emphasizes how critical it is to take care of your home court yet the Suns could not follow up their stellar road trip with a key home win.

“It is terrible,” Frye said. “The fans are doing a great job, coming out here and supporting us and like I said, we just have to take advantage of the opportunities that we have here and definitely start winning at home.

“This is starting to really suck and I think the fans want to see us win; they come out, pay good money to see us play well and tonight we just didn’t do it, we didn’t execute, but we’re going to continue to work hard, go on this road trip and do the best we can.”

And 1

• The Suns have lost three in a row to the Rockets after beating them seven consecutive times. … Frye scored a season-high 21 points to pick up his third double-double of the season and first since Jan. 2. … Nash leads the league with 12 double-doubles of points and assists.
• Reader Neal did some digging on Basketball Reference and discovered a unique stat on Nash’s performance Thursday night. Two Time made the second-most field goals (seven) in a game in which the player dishes at least 13 assists, doesn’t miss a shot and doesn’t attempt a three or a free throw; Jeff Hornacek did the same thing while canning eight shots for the Suns in 1988. Avery Johnson, Nate McMillan and John Stockton are the only other player to put up such a stat line, just with fewer field goals.

PHOENIX — Before the season tipped off, Suns head coach Alvin Gentry proclaimed Robin Lopez would be the second most important player for the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns.

As it turned out, he was barely the second most important center on the roster.

It’s startling to think how far Lopez’s star has fallen from last year at this time when he proved to be the difference in a Western Conference Finals victory to now when it’s questionable whether the Suns see a future for him in Phoenix.

“I can’t put my finger on why he regressed this year, but you can look at it two ways,” Gentry said. “He is 23 years old and he has a lot of years left. I talked to him about let’s just call it a bad [third] year regardless of what it is, and let’s see if we can regroup and come back and get yourself headed back in the right direction.

“I thought last year the way he played for us in the playoffs and what we anticipated as far as him being the second most important guy on our team we felt like if he made that step and made those improvements we could have been real solid and possibly a playoff team, but he understands that and I think no one’s more disappointed than he is. I think you have an opportunity to rectify that by going out and working hard and coming back and improving next year.”

Since it’s rare to see such regression from a player who spent most of the year playing as a 22-year-old, the obvious question mark is his back.

Lopez missed the final 10 games of the 2009-10 regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs due to a bulging disk in his back.

Back injuries for seven-footers are tricky propositions. The Suns took every precaution not to rush him back and vowed not to play him until he was 100 percent ready even if it meant starting Jarron Collins in the playoffs.

Yet even after all that time off and a full summer to rehab, Lopez lacked the explosiveness and athleticism that made him such an attractive draft pick for Phoenix three years ago. Lopez has lost a handful of inches from his vertical and often struggled to finish shots on the interior, getting swatted time and time again.

According to HoopData, Lopez was blocked 11.8 percent of the time last season (double the league average of 5.9) after being rejected on just 6.2 percent of his shots in 2009-10 and 9.5 percent as a rookie.

He only declined from 68.2 percent shooting to 66.4 percent at the rim but went down significantly from 51.5 percent to 36.2 percent from 3-9 feet. On the positive side his improved shooting stroke led him to shoot 46.3 percent from 10-15 feet after being at 29.0 the year before and 25.0 as a rookie.

“If you guys can remember one of the things that we liked about him the most is that he was very athletic, and he lost quite a bit of vertical jumping ability with the injury that he has not recovered from, and he’s slowly recovering from that, so that could have played a part in it, definitely,” Gentry said. “When you’re an athletic big guy and then all of a sudden you lose some of that and you have to rely on other areas it is a little bit of an adjustment as far as your game.”

Synergy Sports Technology tells us Lopez was an anemic post player, hitting just 36.5 percent of his shots and scoring 0.67 points per play in post-up situations, but he was solid as a roll man (1.11 ppp, 55.8 percent shooting) and when spotting up (1.04 ppp, 53.2 percent).

Then there’s rebounding, perhaps Lopez’s biggest weakness that is not exclusive to his down season.

Due to his size and athletic gifts, I always assumed he would blossom into a solid rebounder despite the fact that when it comes to rebounding players often either have a nose for the ball or they don’t.

Lopez ranked 101st in rebound rate this season among players averaging more than six minutes a game by corralling 12.6 percent of the available boards during his court time. He also ranked 132nd in defensive rebound rate at 15.6.

Last year he recorded a 14.2 rebound rate (72nd) and a 15.6 DRR (121st) and as a rookie he put up an 11.2 rebound rate (118th) and a 12.1 DRR (190th).

Even in college when few teams boasted a pair of quality bigs and he had help from his twin Brook his rebound rates didn’t impress. According to StatSheet, Lopez collected a 14.2 DRR as a freshman and a 13.9 DRR as a sophomore. He ranked 21st in the Pacific 10 Conference both years and 735th and 693rd nationally.

By comparison the offensive-minded Brook put up 18.9 and 19.2 DRRs, respectively, against the same competition (and he’s no stellar rebounder himself), and during Lopez’s sophomore campaign a UCLA freshman by the name of Kevin Love more than doubled his defensive rebound rate (28.5).

If a spry Lopez was a middling rebounder in the Pac-10, it’s hard to think he will ever be an above-average pro board man.

Even though Lopez was a very average rebounder in college, he was at least known as a stellar defender, something that was most definitely not the case this season.

Synergy ranks him 460th in the NBA in points per play defense after he yielded a team-worst 1.08 ppp to go with 52.8 percent shooting.

Lopez was particularly bad in post-up situations, as opponents shot 59.3 percent against him, scored 55.6 percent of the time and averaged 1.07 ppp. He also struggled to defend isolation plays (1.09, 51.4 percent shooting, 339th) and spot-up shooters (1.1 ppp, 47.8 percent, 315th) presumably because he moved too slow closing out on the jumpers.

All this added up to Lopez recording a team-worst minus 8.09 adjusted plus/minus, according to Basketball Value, in a season that was shockingly bad in all aspects aside from his improved mid-range jumper (which is not exactly why they drafted him).

“There’s certain expectations that you have for players, and you’ve got to be able to meet those expectations,” Gentry said. “We want him to be a better player offensively, defensively, and that’s what our expectations are.

“It’s just kind of one of those things that he did not have a good year, and I think he’d be the first to tell you that.”

That is an understatement and it brings us to the question of what to do with Lopez at this point.

The easy answer would be to trade him, but the rest of the league knows what the Suns know. As the preceding analysis shows, it’s no secret why Lopez averaged less than 15 minutes a game and became a starter in name only once Marcin Gortat got acclimated to the team.

If the Suns can find a solid offer then you make the deal with Gortat in tow, but it’s hard to believe that will happen. The Suns would be better off keeping him at $2.86 million next season than giving him away for a second-round pick. There’s no reason to give him away when his value is at its lowest point.

The next question has to do with whether he will regain some of that athleticism. Sure, he was never a good rebounder, but if he gets some of that burst back he figures to improve around the basket both offensively and defensively.

With Gortat entrenched as the Suns’ starting center they don’t need Lopez to be a featured player anymore, but they can’t afford to give him minutes if he plays as poorly as he did last season, a year in which he went from looking like a potential future All-Star to a potential feature D-Leaguer.

“I think a year ago he was very much on the right path of being the type of player that we anticipated,” Gentry said. “It’s just the idea of maybe it was just one of those years and now you can regroup and get yourself back on the path that everybody thought about or anticipated he’d become.”

It’s impossible to tell at this point if 2010-11 was an outlier that will soon be forgotten or the beginning of the end of Lopez’s NBA career, but one thing we know with certainty is that Robin Lopez won’t be viewed as the second most important piece on the 2011-12 Suns.

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns’ defense has been so good of late that only the Miami Heat have allowed a lower shooting percentage over their last 10 games entering Sunday.

So maybe that’s why the Suns felt like they would eventually string together a couple stops in the fourth quarter to finish a comeback that never materialized in their stunning 113-108 loss to the Sacramento Kings.

“The truth of the matter is at the end of the game we couldn’t stop them,” Steve Nash said. “The negative side is we couldn’t get stops at the end of the game. The positive is it felt strange, like why aren’t we stopping these guys because our defense has been so good.”

Added Channing Frye, “When they were making all their shots at the end in the fourth quarter we were very uncomfortable. It wasn’t like, ‘OK, oh well,’ it was like, ‘We’re not used to this, it’s not how we play.’”

The Kings scored 35 points on scorching 63.2 percent shooting in the final period. They ripped off an 11-0 run to take a 10-point lead midway through the quarter, and after a pair of unsuccessful possessions that led to successive three-point trips on the Phoenix end to cut it to four, Sacramento scored on its next seven possessions to keep the Suns at bay despite constant offensive pressure from Phoenix.

During this stretch Beno Udrih hit a back-breaking three with a hand in his face to put a four-point lead to seven with three minutes left and Carl Landry and Donte Greene took turns successfully going at Frye and Jared Dudley, respectively.

The Suns just had no answer as shot after Sacramento shot found the net.

“We didn’t get any stops,” head coach Alvin Gentry said. “That’s a tough thing to do — you don’t have any chance of coming back if you’re exchanging baskets. The best you can do is exchange baskets, if they’re scoring every time.”

The Kings shot just 41.3 percent through three quarters, but they were saved by a dominant 42-26 rebounding edge that kept them within three at that point despite missing often after opening up a 17-7 lead that was quickly negated by a 20-2 Phoenix run.

Even with stud rebounder DeMarcus Cousins sitting at home, the Kings got 15 boards from Samuel Dalembert, 10 off the bench from Landry and seven each from Jason Thompson and Omri Casspi.

Marcin Gortat, who grabbed 12 of his own, eight more than any teammate not named Channing Frye (seven), said the Kings often sent three or four guys to the backboards to overwhelm the Suns. That was the story of the Suns’ Jan. 2 loss in Sacramento in which the Kings bullied them to the tune of a 60-32 advantage on the backboards as well.

“They dominated the boards,” Gentry said. “We struggled with them the last time when they dominated the boards. I think you need to give all the credit for them. We’ve done a pretty good job of taking care of the offensive boards and things like that, but they just dominated the boards and I think that was the difference in the game.”

Added Gortat, “They’ve got a lot of strong, athletic guys and they were hitting the glass really hard. We’ve just got to get better at that, be physical and try to go get it.”

The Kings’ prowess on the boards is no surprise as they average the league’s second-most offensive boards (13.2) and second-chance points (15.9) and got 18 offensive boards and 23 second-chance points in this one.

That negated another spectacular game by Nash, who went for 22 and 18 to give him his eighth 20-15 game of the season, compared to four for the rest of the NBA combined. He’s gone for 18.0 and 13.5 in his last four.

But this was a trap game if there ever was one directly in the middle of a home-and-home with the fading Utah Jazz, who appear ripe for the catching.

The Kings lost a late game Saturday night in Sacramento and then told Cousins not to even board the flight after an altercation with Greene.

That’s not to mention Sacramento entered the day with the least amount of victories in the Western Conference and had lost 10 in a row in Phoenix and five in a row overall, the longest active losing streak in the NBA.

In fact the Suns lost to a Pacific Division opponent at home that Kobe Bryant does not play for for the first time since the start of the 2007-08 season after winning their past 22 such games. Phoenix had also won its previous 11 Sunday home games as well, dating back to Feb. 22, 2009.

“Alvin warned us,” Nash said. “They’ve had some chemistry issues this year, they’re going to come out tonight without Cousins and feel like this is a great opportunity. We should have been more prepared just mentally.”

Like many Suns followers, I was already thinking ahead to the Suns’ great opportunity to get four games over .500 by the All-Star break if they can defeat the Jazz and Mavs at home, figuring a victory over the lowly Kings was a foregone conclusion.

The Suns never knocked the Kings out in the third quarter, and then never could make a comeback that seemed inevitable after falling behind by double-digits in the fourth.

Gortat said the Suns had been playing so well lately, winners of 11 of 15, that they were going to slip up eventually. It’s just hard to imagine it would come at home against one of the worst teams in the West.

Nash said there are always five games a season that you look back on as games that should be in the ‘W’ column, but you just hope it’s not 15.

Following in the tradition of games they should have won against the Bulls, Grizzlies, Kings on the road, Pistons and now Kings again, the Suns have more than reached their quota.

“It’s one of those losses that you are going to look back at and it’s going to hurt,” Gentry said.

And 1

Vince Carter has not played in the Suns’ last three fourth quarters. He walked out on reporters when asked about this circumstance. … Nash retained the NBA’s all-time leading free throw percentage despite missing a foul shot tonight. … The Suns have won five of six against winning teams but have lost four of seven against losing squads. … Dudley on his second dunk of the season and second in three games: “I’m starting to bang it out, baby, I’m starting to bang it out.”

Marcin Gortat and Robin Lopez may finally share the frontcourt against the Lakers on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Thearon Henderson)

PHOENIX — The trio of Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom historically manhandles the Phoenix Suns on the interior.

So far this season, the Lakers are shooting 33-of-48 (68.67) at the rim against the Suns, while outrebounding Phoenix 95-75 in two meetings (one loss, one win).

Gasol is posting averages of 24 points, 12.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists on 64.7 percent shooting against the Suns, while Odom’s gone for 20 and 14 on 60 percent from the field.

Phoenix has yet to take on Bynum, who spent the first few months of the season rehabbing injury.

For the first 27 games, the Suns never possessed the personnel to matchup with the Lakers’ bigs, but with both Marcin Gortat and Robin Lopez in purple and orange, they finally feature a pair of defensive-minded centers who can at least compete with the biggest team in the NBA.

The question is: will Alvin Gentry play Gortat and Lopez together? Gortat certainly thinks it’s a must.

“Obviously big teams like the Lakers where you’ve got two big men, you need to have two guys at the same time on the floor to protect the basket,” said Gortat at his introductory press conference. “If Coach will decide to play it like that, I’m ready.”

“Ya we believe we can fit together, playing on this team at the same time,” Gortat added.

Does Gentry agree? He said that the Suns won’t go small ball against LA like they have been with Nash-Carter-Pietrus-Hil-Lopez as the starters.

However, he doesn’t seem too sure that Gortat (9.6 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.2 blocks, 57.4 percent shooting in 29.2 minutes)  and Lopez (6.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, 0.4 blocks, 45.8 percent shooting in 15 minutes during last five) can play together, especially considering they have yet to play a single minute together through five games.

Although both Gortat and Lopez can bring defense and rebounding against the defending champs, there are concerns with offensive spacing as twe two not-quite explosive, non-jump shooting big men on the floor at the same time allows Steve Nash less room to operate.

“I can tell you something I’m not going to come up with something new and start shooting threes, that’s not what I do so don’t expect me to do that,” Gortat said.

Even though he won’t splash any triples, Gortat did play approximately 22 minutes with Dwight Howard last season and served as the screen and roll guy, with Howard anchoring the paint. He’s s a very good pick and roll player so it is feasible to have him constantly pick and roll while Lopez flashes to the ball and waits for Nash spoon-feeds.

The Polish Machine also thrives in transition for a big man, which is another reason he can play next to Lopez against the Lakers.

“That’s the first thing that comes to mind is that he runs the floor extremely well,” said Vince Carter of Gortat. “I think that will be a strength with Robin, or any other big.He’s earned the opportunity to play the four because he runs the floor, he rebounds and he’s a very good defensive player.”

While Gortat and Carter believe the Polish Machine is capable of playing next to Lopez, Gentry all-but said Channing Frye is the key to the game in terms of spacing the floor, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him in the starting lineup, although he’s averaged 8.0 points and 4.2  rebounds on 34.7 percent shooting in 27 minutes over the last five games. If here’s one game to break out Phoenix’s twin towers of Lopez and Gortat, however, it’s against the Lakers.

Phoenix could even play Frye at the three, Gortat at the four and Lopez at the five to combat the Lakers’ Odom-Gasol-Bynum lineup. Don’t expect that to happen, but with the Suns struggling at 14-18 and facing off against a teetering Lakers squad, I wouldn’t put anything past Phoenix.

With the way they’ve been rebounding — losing the battle in their last four games — against a struggling, but huge Lakers team, going big may be the only answer.

“Playing a small lineup against them is not going to be good from a rebounding perspective. We could go with a bigger lineup,” Getnry said. “We’ll have a lot of screens out there.”

PHOENIX — If you want your son or daughter to learn how to play the point guard position, pop in the tape of Steve Nash Sunday evening against Washington. Two Time was downright transcendent.

Nash played the position about as well as you could play it, practically pitching a perfect game by scoring 20 points on perfect 8-for-8 shooting from the field and 3-for-3 shooting from the line to go along with 17 assists and just two turnovers in Phoenix’s 125-108 blowout of Washington.

Nash became the first player in NBA history to twice record 17 assists without missing a shot since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77. Only three other players have done this once and the list isn’t too shabby: Magic Johnson, John Stockton and Mark Jackson. Nash also pulled the trick April 3, 2007, when he hit four shots and dished 17 dimes in Memphis, and before that it hadn’t been done since Stockton in 1994.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Nash became the second player in the shot clock era (since 1954-55) to post a 20 points and 10 assists game without missing a field goal or free throw, and that hasn’t been done since 1985 when Lester Conner did it.

“About as efficient of a game as you could ever have,” head coach Alvin Gentry said of his star point guard’s performance. “When he’s feeling good he’s played as well as any guard in the league.”

Nash asserted himself scoring-wise in the first half as he tallied 16 points to go with “just” six assists, hitting shot after shot to help the Suns come back from a double-digit deficit for the fourth time at home this season and the second time this weekend.

In the third quarter he switched into distributor mode and started setting up so many alley-oops I could have sworn I was watching an All-Star Game.

Nash assisted on five alley-oops in the quarter to four different players, starting the half off with back-to-back alleys to Jason Richardson and the suddenly high-flying Channing Frye. Grant Hill, Hakim Warrick and J-Rich again eventually got into the mix as the Suns successfully opened up the middle for those lobs and Nash dished eight assists in the period.

“I think the more we get people involved the more efficient we become as a team,” Gentry said.

The Suns used a strong defensive third quarter in which they yielded just 17 points on 35.3 percent shooting to get out and run and essentially put the game away.

When the Wizards cut the lead to 12 with 5:13 remaining, Gentry called timeout and re-inserted the starters. Nash promptly handed out three more assists and in just over 2:30 the starters were back on the bench after an 11-5 run with the decision no longer in doubt.

This game also marked the return of Hakim Warrick to rotational relevancy after combining for just six points in 16 minutes the past two games. Warrick poured in a season-high 26 points on 10-for-13 shooting as Nash found him time and time again diving down the lane for easy buckets. All of Warrick’s makes were in the lane area and all but two of them were right at the rim.

“Whenever you play with that guy, he’ll find you,” Warrick said of Nash, who assisted on six of his 10 buckets. “Just knowing if you attack the rim he’s going to find you. Right before you think you’re open the ball’s in your hand. All I have to do is go to the rim and go up strong. It’s a big reason why I came here, to play with a guy like that, and I’m just fortunate to play with him.

“Not too many point guards can go and make the type of passes and get you the ball the way he gets you the ball.”

Gentry said that Warrick set more aggressive screens in this one, which caused the big man to stay with Nash for a split second longer, which thus opened up the middle for a rolling Warrick.

When Warrick himself wasn’t benefiting from a Nash pass he was opening up the perimeter for his teammates who knocked down 58.0 percent of their shots (even including Earl Barron’s 3-for-9).

“He was huge for us tonight,” Richardson said of Warrick. “He kept rolling down there. He actually got some open shots for myself, Channing, Jared, Grant by just rolling down there, Steve finding him and just opened up the floor for everybody.”

Warrick played 28:47, Dudley played 25 and Hedo, Goran, Childress and starting center Earl Barron all played 16-20 minutes in the latest edition of lineup roulette.

Last game Jared Dudley was the big bench contributor, and in Golden State Turkoglu saw significant time off the pine.

“I don’t see this as a team like last year we pretty much knew what the set rotation’s gonna be,” Gentry said. “I don’t know if this team’s gonna be that this year. I think we’ll have guys who need to step up. At the end of the day if you get the same results then you’re in good shape.”

The Suns do like having Barron in that starting lineup for the activity he brings, and Gentry expects him to eventually hit some of the makeable shots around the rim he missed tonight.

After winning the battle of the boards 43-37, the Suns have now outboarded the opposition twice in his three starts after doing so just once in their first 17 games. The team is also undefeated since starting Barron.

“I just think we have made everyone conscious of that as a coaching staff and we say we’ve got to pursue the ball, and we’ve done that,” Gentry said. “Also I think we’ve done a little bit better job of boxing out, keeping guys from flying in and rebounding the ball for second shots, and because of that we’ve done a pretty good job.”

With just enough progress on the rebounding and defensive side of things, the Suns improved to a season-best-tying two games over .500 thanks to another superb offensive performance buoyed by Nash’s Hall of Fame game.

And 1

Warrick on adjusting to sporadic playing time: “You’ve got to know no matter what when your number’s called you’ve got to be ready to execute and perform.” … J-Rich has scored at least 20 in seven straight, his longest streak since 2008 with Charlotte (nine games). … The Suns have won six of seven in US Airways Center and eight straight overall against Washington. … The Suns are 3-0 in December for the first time since 2007-08. … Warrick has recorded four 20-point efforts off the bench this season. … Barron tallied seven points and eight boards (six offensive) in just 16:31. … Frye’s career-best streak of double-digit scoring games ended at 11 after his seven-point effort on 2-for-8 shooting.

Rebounding and crunch time execution won this game for the Suns. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

When the Suns got hot during the second half last season, they were practically invincible when they won the rebounding battle.

You could say the same thing about this year’s Suns, but the sample size is so small it hardly qualifies as a trend.

Still when you consider Phoenix’s offensive prowess and its ineptness on the boards, any game the Suns win the rebounding battle in figures to go their way, and thanks to some quality crunch time execution while Golden State faded that board work led the Suns to a quality 107-101 victory over the Warriors on a night you may have been watching the LeBron circus or the missed extra point disaster in Tucson.

“It was a great game for us,” Jason Richardson told TNT. “We came out and did the things we’re supposed to. This is a step forward in the right direction.”

Phoenix won the rebounding battle 37-31, marking only the second time all season that was the case, with the other being their come-from-behind win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Nov. 5 when Zach Randolph tired.

Channing Frye led the way with 10 boards, making this only the second time all year he reached double digits (the other was the aforementioned Memphis game), while Hedo Turkoglu chipped in with seven off the bench and Jared Dudley five.

Beating the Warriors on the boards isn’t necessarily a huge accomplishment since last year they were the only team in the league worse than the Suns in this department and even with the addition of noted boarder David Lee they are still in the bottom sixth of the league. But for this Suns squad it’s noteworthy any time they outrebound the opponent.

In the end, though, the Suns won this game just by being a veteran club that out-executed the Warriors down the stretch and then nailed all their free throws at the very end to prevent a comeback. Free throw shooting was superb all game with the Suns knocking down 21-of-22 (Frye had the only miss).

Trailing by five after Steve Nash missed a jumper, Monta Ellis got called for a double dribble trying to pass to Lee, who wasn’t expecting one, leading Ellis to catch his own pass.

Jason Richardson answered with a jumper in Ellis’ grill with a second on the shot clock to push the lead to seven, and after a couple Lee free throws, Grant Hill was fouled by Dorell Wright with a second left after the Suns had nearly lost the ball. When he knocked down both to push the lead to seven with 40 seconds left, Phoenix’s free-throw shooting iced the game.

Leading by three entering the fourth, the bench opened the quarter on an 18-7 run to push the Suns’ lead up to 14. It’s worth noting that the bench gave up seven of those points before exiting midway through the quarter, but during that push they resembled the unit of last year that’s been missing much of this season.

Goran Dragic sparked the run with seven points and Jared Dudley did Jared Dudley things to score another seven points during the spurt.

Shoring up the rebounding is certainly a key, but if the Suns want to reach their potential they need this second unit to develop into one of the best benches in the NBA. There’s no question it has that talent for that, and as Frye said last week perhaps one day the unit will mesh and we’ll all wonder where it came from.

Stretching a lead during the fourth quarter in a hostile environment while an opponent like Monta Ellis is going bonkers has got to make you believe that day will be sooner than later.

The Suns’ newest starting lineup also enjoyed a solid outing in this one. Richardson played another fine game in his former home by pouring in 25 points on 10-for-15 shooting, including that dagger in crunch time. Grant Hill’s sprained foot seemed just fine as he scored 24 points on 9-for-11 shooting, and Nash dished a season-high-tying 16 assists (an outright season high in games he didn’t play 49 minutes in).

Then Frye had his big game on the boards and new starter Earl Barron put up a team-high-tying plus 10 in 25 minutes of action. I do wonder why Hakim Warrick played just nine minutes, perhaps to give Barron a longer look, but in any case Warrick’s porous season away from US Airways Center continued. Hedo Turkoglu went for nine and six and once again looked very comfortable with the bench unit.

Aside from Monta Ellis’ 38-point explosion and Lee’s 25 and eight, the Suns limited the rest of the Warriors with Wright being the next leading scorer with 10.

You could tell that the Suns’ practice time this week as well as the opinions Alvin Gentry likely shared in the aftermath of the defensive massacre in Denver made a difference for this basketball team. Although the Warriors hit half their shots, this was not the shootout most Suns-Warriors games are as Phoenix sent Golden State to its ninth loss in 11 games after a 6-2 start.

The win also improves the Suns to .500, and if they can start to produce more rebounding efforts like this one that’s a mark they should far surpass in no time.

Steve Nash's return sparked the Suns to a road trip-salvaging win in Houston. (AP Photo/Bob Levey)

Steve Nash won his first MVP award in large part because of how bad an otherwise spectacular Suns team was in his absence during the 2004-05 season.

Although I doubt Nash will ever be known as “Three Time,” the contrast between Saturday’s ugly loss in Charlotte and tonight’s pretty (offensively at least) 123-116 win over Houston proves once again just what Nash means to this basketball team.

Aside from preventing the horrors of more time for Jared Dudley at the point, Nash sparked the Suns from start to finish by carving up the Rockets for 24 points and nine assists while putting up a +13 in his 37 minutes of work.

Nash’s best stretch came when he re-entered the game with 5:16 left in the first half and the Suns up two and willed an 18-4 Phoenix run in which he assisted on four Suns field goals. Off the strength of that run, Phoenix went into the break with a 14-point halftime lead.

Later on his beautiful feed at the rim to Jason Richardson for an easy two as the shot clock expired that put Phoenix up eight with 37 seconds left finished off his masterpiece.

“He is the engine that drives the car,” Gentry said of Nash. “He comes out and makes the plays and knocks down the big shots.”

While we have known that for years, after watching the Suns play two games without Nash and one game with a gimpy No. 13 who wasn’t himself, it’s startling to watch how different Phoenix’s offense is with MVSteve. With Nash, you always feel like the Suns can get a good shot, whereas they went cold for long stretches against Orlando and Charlotte when they just couldn’t get the kind of attempts that Nash gets them.

If last week was a glimpse of what the post-Nash era will look like, Suns fans better be sure to enjoy what Nash means to this offense for as long as he’s in Phoenix.

But it wasn’t just Nash. All of the starters scored at least 15 points, led by Jason Richardson’s 26 (12 in the fourth), and Hakim Warrick and Josh Childress chipped in with 10-point efforts that gave the Suns seven guys in double figures. Phoenix as a team shot 53.8 percent.

Defensively, they were the same old Suns, particularly during Houston’s 71-point second half that was just barely held off by Phoenix’s 64-point half.

The Rockets missed all 12 of their threes and shot 40 percent in the first half, but they wound up shooting 49 percent for the game and knocked down 6-of-14 threes in the second half.

Houston also (surprise, surprise!) decimated the Suns on the glass, racking up 18 offensive boards on its way to a 51-33 rebounding advantage. Former Wildcat Jordan Hill grabbed 10 off the bench to go with 14 points as the front line of Hill, Luis Scola, Chuck Hayes and Brad Miller pulled down as many rebounds as the Suns did as a team. They helped the Rockets score 24 second-chance points and 62 points in the paint.

“Wins are hard to come by. Any win on the road is a great win,” Gentry said. “Our offensive rebounding and second-chance points have been our downfall. We’re happy with the win and we will build from it. Our offense won the game for us. We need to get our defense to make the necessary stops for us to win down the stretch.”

The Suns’ offense is good enough that they will be able to outscore struggling defensive teams, but that’s not much of a blueprint for success in the NBA, particularly against teams that do defend as we saw earlier in the trip.

But that offense is good enough that Lon Babby and Lance Blanks should be doing everything possible to bring another rebounder (oops, shouldn’t say another because that presumes somebody on this team rebounds in the first place) to town and hope Robin Lopez recovers from his knee injury and develops into a force on the boards.

It’s a testament to how good this offense can be that the Suns could get outrebounded by 18 and give up 71 points in the second half on the road yet still pull out a victory.

As the Suns were trying to blow what had started out as a 15-point fourth quarter lead, Hedo Turkoglu hit the biggest shot of the night, as he has done in Phoenix’s last three victories. A Kevin Martin three-pointer had just cut the lead to three when Richardson missed a jumper with just over 2:30 left.

But Grant Hill, who played a superb game in accruing a 17-7-7, tipped the rebound out to a waiting Turkoglu, who drilled a three-pointer to stretch the lead to six. The Suns never were seriously threatened again as they knocked down all their free throws down the stretch.

“It’s always great to finish a road trip with a win,” Turkoglu said. “We didn’t start the trip well. This was a good win.”

Although the Rockets are struggling at 3-10 and were without their point guard (Aaron Brooks) and center (Yao), this qualifies as a good win in my book. I expected Houston to be a playoff team when the season started, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they storm back to fight for one of the final playoff spots with the Suns. In April this win will shine much brighter than it does tonight.

For the Suns, as Grant Hill was saying on the postgame show, it was important just to feel what winning was like again after barely competing in their last three ballgames. Finishing this road trip 1-3 really isn’t so bad when you consider the Nash and Lopez injuries and the fact they were probably going to lose both in Florida regardless and the Bobcats always play them tough in Charlotte.

I’ve been writing almost every game about how the Suns must prevent themselves from getting buried by their brutal early schedule, and as the schedule eases up at least a touch they have done that, winning in Utah, Atlanta, Los Angeles and now Houston while weathering injuries to Lopez and Nash and figuring out how the pieces fit.

The Suns must improve greatly defensively and on the boards to become a legitimate playoff threat, but their offense has proven to be good enough these first 14 games to keep the Suns afloat with a .500 record.

And 1

Nash decided to suit up about an hour before the game after missing the past two games with a groin injury. “Not too bad,” he said of the groin. “My reoccurring injury was OK, but I bruised my heel in the first quarter and I was limping a bit from that. I’ve been working real hard to come back and I had it in my mind to play and I was ready. My soreness was down.” … Nash surpassed the 15,000-point and 8,500-assist plateaus for his career in this contest. … Phoenix went 7-of-13 from three (53.8 percent) to end its drought from long range, meaning the Suns shot the same percentage from three as they did overall.

We received 90 entries to our Phoenix Suns cufflinks contest, but thanks to the Suns’ porous three-point shooting outing Wednesday in Miami, only Eddie Kurtz and Ilan Shamos accurately prognosticated that the Suns would drill five super shots.  Eddie correctly added: “Although I hope that’s wrong. They won’t win with that!”

The tiebreaker round will take place tonight. The question: What will be the rebounding margin in the Suns’ matchup against Dwight Howard and the Magic?

Eddie’s guess is that the Suns will be -11 and Ilan predicted -8, so that means if the Suns are -9 or better Ilan will be bringing home the cufflinks and if they are -10 or worse it will go to Eddie.

May the best prognosticator win.

Suns

Heat

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns and Miami Heat enter tonight’s showdown in South Beach in the same place in the standings at 6-4, but how the teams feel about their first 10 games is about as different as their offseasons.

The Suns come into this one having won three in a row and five of six.

They have gone on the road and beaten the likes of the Lakers, the Jazz and the Hawks and overall rank sixth in John Hollinger’s Power Rankings off the virtue of playing the league’s third-toughest schedule thus far.

The Heat rank second in that same measure off the strength of their league-leading point differential (+9.4), but their season thus far has been colored by blowing out the bad teams (plus Orlando) but losing to good teams in Boston (twice), Utah and New Orleans.

For a team that some thought might have a chance of chasing the illustrious 72-win mark, four early losses can be seen as a major disappointment in the land of LeBron, where every piece of negativity gets picked apart ad nauseum.

But Suns head coach Alvin Gentry certainly doesn’t look at Miami as your typical 6-4 team.

“I wouldn’t read a whole lot into their record right now,” he said. “I think those guys are still trying to find each other, figure out how they’re going to play.”

Although the Suns will of course struggle with containing LeBron and D-Wade like everyone else does, the Suns’ weaknesses on the boards and in defending the interior aren’t exactly Miami strengths.

The Heat rank just No. 27 in offensive rebound rate, grabbing 23.0 percent of their potential offensive boards. Their leading rebounder is Udonis Haslem off the bench with 8.6, and nobody else averages more than six. Like Phoenix, Miami instead relies on big contributions on the glass from their wings.

Former Heat player Earl Barron should give the Suns a lift on the glass in his debut. It will be interesting to see how much Barron factors into Alvin Gentry’s rotation, but if he hits the boards hard like he told Paul Coro it’s his aim to do then he figures to get a decent amount of burn going forward.

Next to rebounding, the Suns’ biggest problem will be the same question every other opponent asks when it comes to Miami: How do you contain two of the game’s most dynamic perimeter threats?

The numbers for LeBron and Wade (or Wade and LeBron, if you so prefer) are down this season as they take touches away from each other, but they still average a combined 47.0 points, 11.6 boards and 12.1 assists per game.

The Suns figure to recover and help with their scrambling style and perhaps play a bit of zone to prevent this duo from carving them up with dribble penetration at the cup. Phoenix knows these guys will score, but the Suns just want to make it tough on them and make them get their points with high-volume shooting.

“Both those guys are obviously gifted, talented guys, and the one thing that we’ve tried to do with high scorers like Kobe and Melo is really just try to keep them off the free-throw line,” said Josh Childress, who will be tasked with defending them. “It’s going to be tough stopping them from getting their averages or whatever it may be, but you keep them off the line it makes our job a little easier and we’re able to kind of keep a flow to the game and really just try to make them take tough shots, make them take jump shots and keep them out of the lane.”

The other member of the so-called Big Three, Bosh, has been the disappointment of the season thus far with averages of 14.5 points and 6.0 boards per game, but the RuPaul of big men — as Shaq once called him — is going to break out one of these days and he won’t get a better front line to do it against than that of the Suns.

Through 10 games, the Suns have exceeded expectations with their trio of big road victories, but winning a game in the national spotlight in Miami could announce to the league that they are for real much the way their November win in Boston did last season.

And 1

At the age of 38, Grant Hill leads the Suns in rebounding (5.7) and is an important part of Phoenix’s up-tempo attack. His long-time coach Gentry can’t believe how young he looks.

“Our medical staff here revived his whole career,” Gentry said. “I’ve coached him eight of the years he’s been in the league, and this is probably as athletic and as healthy as he’s been since those first couple years we were in Detroit together.”

In other Hill news, Grant picked up a technical Monday night asking for a foul, prompting a reporter to joke that won’t help his campaign to win the NBA’s sportsmanship award for the fourth time in his career.

“After the preseason, I’ve given up on sportsmanship,” Hill said. “I’ve just got to chalk it up as a loss and shoot for next year.”

Suns

Lakers

PHOENIX — An NBA schedule cannot get much more difficult than the gauntlet the Phoenix Suns will face the next five days.

Starting with tonight’s showdown against the Lakers in Staples Center, the Suns face a four games in five days stretch that also includes a home game against Denver and back-to-back roadies in Miami and Orlando. For my money, that’s perhaps the three best teams in the NBA on the road as well as a very solid Denver squad.

The Suns have already won every game they should as well as scoring “upsets” in Utah and Atlanta, and staying around .500 — which I think should be the goal for November — will become even more difficult this week.

At least this time the Suns won’t be playing the Lakers on the second half of a back-to-back as always seems to be the case, but they won’t get a tired Los Angeles squad either, as the Lakers lost their first game of the season Thursday night in Denver in their last game.

The Lakers have started out 6-0 at home and overall have looked largely unbeatable in racking up a positive scoring margin of 10.4 points per game. Three of their six home wins have come by at least 19 points.

Los Angeles has been particularly lethal on the offensive end this season, leading the NBA in offensive efficiency by averaging 112.5 points per 100 possessions. After a bit of a slow start in a department Phoenix typically paces the league in, the Suns trail just the Lakers and the Heat by scoring 108.8 points per 100 possessions.

As we saw last May, the Suns can score on the Lakers, just it’s doubtful they will be able to stop a Los Angeles offense that’s clicking as well as ever, especially since they enter this one ahead of only Sacramento and Toronto in defensive efficiency (and we saw how bad the Kings are in this department Friday night).

Kobe Bryant leads the Lakers by averaging 25.2 points per game, but Pau Gasol has perhaps been their best player by putting up spectacular all-around numbers: 22.7 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 4.4 asp and 1.44 bpg. Gasol leads the Lakers in all those categories but points, and Lamar Odom’s 14.3 and 10.9 line is not too shabby either.

In their first matchup on Oct. 29 in Phoenix, a 114-106 Lakers win, Odom pounded the Suns for 18 points, 17 boards and five assists with Hedo Turkoglu primarily defending him. Perhaps this should be the game Gentry slots Hakim Warrick into the starting lineup for Turkoglu to prevent such an ugly mismatch.

Gentry has said he would like to put Turkoglu in more advantageous situations, which presumably means shifting him away from matchups against a guy like Odom.

“For him to have to guard the Zach Randolphs of the world he will get in foul trouble,” Gentry said. “We want to put him in situations where he doesn’t have to try to pound and grind with those guys. That’s not what his game is. We have to try and see if we can get him in a situation that’s more feasible for him, too.”

The Suns must prevent Gasol and Odom from having a field day on the boards to even have a chance in this one. The Lakers rank third in the NBA by grabbing 32.3 percent of the available offensive boards. The Suns are dead last in the corresponding statistic by corralling just 64.8 percent of the available defensive boards.

That means Phoenix will be relying on a solid game from Robin Lopez, whose 18 points and 14 rebounds in the first meeting marked his only strong game of the season. Improvement on the boards from all their bigs is essential after Lopez, Turkoglu, Frye, and Warrick combined for less rebounds than Nash and Jason Richardson on Friday against the Kings.

“We’re going to have to clean that up,” J-Rich said. “They’re big, they’re long, we know they can outrebound us because we’re undersized. We need to do a better job.”

Typically when the Suns play the Lakers there is talk of it being a “measuring stick game.” It’s hard to say whether are far enough along in their development as a team for this to measure much more than how well the Suns play on Sunday night, but clearly a victory would make quite the statement as the Suns embark on their murderers’ row of a week.

And 1

It will be interesting to see where Nash’s head is at after announcing he will be getting a divorce in a statement on Saturday, a day after his wife gave birth to his first son. Nash turned in one of the better games of his illustrious career Friday against Sacramento with the divorce no doubt weighing on him when he torched the Kings for a 28-14-7 line. Perhaps these family issues are sharpening his focus, or perhaps he will be emotionally drained for this one.