Frye and Gortat combined for 38 points and 20 rebounds, but the Suns once again couldn't pull out a victory. Copyright 2011 NBAE (Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images)

If you’re looking for an explanation why the Phoenix Suns won’t make the playoffs this season, pop in the tape of tonight’s matchup with the Kings — or their last three games against Sacramento for that matter.

Once again the Suns collapsed down the stretch — crippled by turnovers, poor defense and lack of a go-to scorer — as they lost hold of an 11-point, second-half lead to become the only team to lose to the lowly Kings three times this season, falling 116-113 in Sacramento.

Meet the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns.

The Kings have now outscored the Suns by a total of 32 points in the fourth quarters of their last three meetings, making them 10.6 points better than Phoenix in the most important quarter of the game.

But it’s not just the Kings that give the Suns trouble in crunch time.

Blowing leads, looking lost offensively and struggling to come up with big stops late in games has become the mantra of this year’s Suns team, and it’s no wonder Phoenix is 36-37 and all-but eliminated from the playoff race.

Because of these glaring deficiencies, the Suns are under .500 for the first time since Feb. 7, have lost four of their last five, eight of their last 11 and plan on watching the playoffs from home. Phoenix is now 10-13 in games decided by five points or less, and all 13 of those losses can be attributed to the Suns’ lack of ability to close out games.

As was the case in their previous two games against Sacramento, the Suns were in the driver’s seat for the majority of the contest and rattled off a 9-0 run midway through the third quarter to take a 78-67 lead with 7:22 remaining in the period. The Kings fought back, but the Suns kept their distance and led 91-84 when Steve Nash headed to the bench with 1:06 left in the third.

Phoenix seemed to be rolling, scoring at will in transition (33 fast-break points on the night) as Jared Dudley (17 points, five rebounds, five steals) and Marcin Gortat (17 points, 11 rebounds) thrived in their new starting roles.

The bench even built the lead to 98-88 with 10:12 left in the game and the Suns were on pace to finally get the better of the Kings and end their two-game slide.

But like most losses similar to this, Aaron Brooks (1-for-6, four turnovers) and company couldn’t keep their foot on the gas as the Kings cut the Suns lead to 102-100 just over two minutes later.

Phoenix had only committed six turnovers through the first three quarters, while allowing only six fast-break points. But the Suns committed four turnovers in the first 4:04 of the fourth quarter and the Kings converted on run-out dunk after run-out dunk, ultimately finishing the game with 19 fast-break points.

Soon after Nash came back the Kings took a 106-104 lead that lasted only a minute as Dudley tied things up with 5:07 left. But from that point on the offense stalled, as the Suns went 2-for-10 from the field and scored only seven points in the final five minutes of play.

Despite the late-game struggles the Suns still led 110-109 with just under a minute to go when Marcus Thornton (24 points and 11 rebounds) drilled a triple and the Kings didn’t look back as four more free throws put the game on ice and capped off their dominance of the Suns.

Yet another one that got away for Phoenix against a team it should have beaten. Tis the story of the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns. They shot 7-for-21 in the fourth quarter, allowed the Kings to shoot 11-for-18 in the fourth (hitting nine of their first 10), were outrebounded 50-39 and couldn’t muster up enough points or defensive stops to take the first step in an improbable playoff run.

They played well enough for 40 minutes to win the game. They shot 50 percent from the field and turned the ball over only 10 times, but it’s those final eight to 10 minutes that’s killed this team all season long.

The Suns have always been a team, because of their reliance on shooting and the pace they play at, that lets teams back into ball games. But it’s never come back to haunt them as badly as it has this year.

Not only do teams creep into the game with ease, the Suns’ offense looks absolutely lost with nowhere to go as the game comes to a close. Nash (13 points, 14 assists) no longer has the offensive firepower to put the team on it’s back, and you can only run so many sets for Channing Frye (21 points, nine rebounds).

It’s only fitting that this is how Phoenix’s season will end, with questions from the preseason still left unanswered. Who will take over late in games? How will the Suns get stops late in games? Will they be OK without a legitimate interior scoring presence?

None of these questions ever received a positive answer, and thus, the Suns sit 4 1/2 games behind eighth place Memphis with only 11 games to play.

Suns

Kings

PHOENIX — As the Phoenix Suns begin their 10-game de facto exhibition season Tuesday night in Sacramento, they can look across the court at one of the visual reminders of why they’re in this situation.

The Suns are responsible for two of Sacramento’s 20 wins, games that a playoff team can’t afford to lose.

The most crushing one occurred right in this very building on Jan. 2 when the Suns blew a 12-point lead with under six minutes to go as DeMarcus Cousins sparked the Kings to a 19-2 run. Then on Feb. 13 in US Airways Center the Suns just could not stop a Cousins-less Sacto squad that scored 35 points on 63.2 percent shooting in the fourth to thwart a Suns rally that seemed inevitable.

There were many other such demoralizing losses but few hurt as much as these two against the West’s second-worst team.

While the Suns are struggling a bit with losses in two straight and three of four, the Kings actually come into this one hot with wins in three straight and four of five on their just completed Eastern road trip.

It’s sure to be a raucous atmosphere with the city of Sacramento striving to save their Kings, and the Suns could be in for a letdown following Sunday’s realization that, as Gortat put it, it doesn’t look like “we’re going to be talking about playoffs this year anymore.”

The Kings have known that about themselves since November, yet they finally started to build a little momentum on this past road trip, with Marcus Thornton scorching the nets to give them a new dimension at the shooting guard spot.

I look forward to seeing whether the Suns play with the same kind of zest they did during their last spirited road trip in Los Angeles or whether they play like they’ve thrown in the towel.

The Suns have already made a starting lineup switch that they plan to continue using by inserting Gortat and Jared Dudley into the first unit for Robin Lopez and Vince Carter. Gortat and Dudley figure to be starters (or at least key rotation players) next season while Carter has 10 games left in a Suns uniform and Lopez could be moved as well.

In these final 10 games I’d like to see more Josh Childress so the organization has a better grip on whether he can be the player they thought they signed and more Aaron Brooks so the Suns can figure out whether he really does have point guard of the future potential or whether he’s a sunk cost they should let go of.

“For us it’s not only finishing it up the right way, it’s getting ready for next year,” Dudley said. “A lot of people are under contract. I signed my extension, obviously a couple guys here, Gortat’s still here. We’re trying to build if we don’t get to the playoffs for next year, what guys are going to be here, how we’re going to build for next year, make that huge leap.”

With the Suns firmly established as a .500 team 72 games into the season, the best they can hope for at this point is bringing positive vibes into 2011-12 along with a better plan for next offseason than they had during the last one.

And 1

Nick Ketner won the third annual Bounce with the Suns contest by dribbling a basketball for 44 hours and 47 minutes. Pretty impressive, as I remember the first year’s contest ending just a few hours after the night’s Suns game after an early morning start, and I’m not sure if I could do anything consecutively for almost 45 hours without sleep. Ketner will get to travel on a road trip with the Suns next season after outlasting 46 other participants.

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.”

Kings

Suns

The Suns were embarrassed in their first game of 2011.

Up 14 in the fourth quarter in Sacramento, Phoenix squandered its big lead and allowed the conference’s worst team to pull off the comeback, 94-89.

The Suns fell to 14-18 on the season and would go on to lose two more games before turning their ship around.

Flash forward a little over a month later and Phoenix has managed to crawl its way back over the .500 mark.

Most recently, the team defeated the Jazz on Friday night by holding Utah to just 27 points in the second half.

“Mickael Pietrus came in and did a great job on Deron [Williams] and made him work for his shots,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry told Suns.com. “And we did a good job of rebounding the basketball and then I thought we executed great down the stretch.”

Phoenix displayed a remarkably stingy defense that held the Jazz to 32 percent shooting from the field.

Williams had 19 points, but was just 4-for-11 from the field in the second half.

“I don’t know that technically or mechanically we’re the best defensive team, but when we play aggressive, when we play hard, when we play with passion, I think we can do a good enough job down there,” Robin Lopez said. “And that will fuel our offense, if we get the stops defensively.”

The win put the Suns over the .500 mark for the first time since Dec. 7 and just one game back  in the loss column of Portland for the eighth seed in the West.

Friday, however, was just the latest in a recent string of high-quality basketball from the rejuvenated Suns.

Since Jan. 12, only the Spurs have a better record than Phoenix’s 11-4.

On the other side are the Kings.

If it weren’t for the historically bad Cavaliers, Sacramento would be the worst team in the NBA.

Nevertheless, the young Kings team gained a lot of confidence from their last meeting with the Suns.

During their fourth quarter rally in January, Sacramento played with sparks and flames.

Rookie DeMarcus Cousins had 13 of his 28 points in the final frame to go along with his eight boards and six assists.

Phoenix will need to be wary of this classic trap game.

The Suns have had issues of late with the bottom duelers of the league (see head-scratching losses to Detroit, Philadelphia and Charlotte).

The team has, however, won 10 straight against Sacramento at home with an average margin of victory over 20 points.

After the Kings, Phoenix heads into All-Star weekend with home games against Utah and Dallas, so Sunday provides an opportunity to guarantee the team at least a .500 record at the break.

Cousins doesn’t make trip

Kings stud rookie DeMarcus Cousins did not make the trip to Phoenix following an altercation with Donte Greene in the locker room Saturday night concerning Greene’s decision to give the ball to Tyreke Evans for a last-second shot in last night’s game against Oklahoma City, according to the Sacramento Bee‘s Jason Jones.

Jones reports that Cousins still could join the team today in the Valley.

According to the report, Cousins and Greene had words for each other and then had to be separated. One source told ESPN’s J.A. Adande that Cousins complained about wanting respect despite being a rookie.

Cousins destroyed the Suns in Sacramento’s 94-89 victory on Jan. 2 by going for a career-high 28 points and eight boards on 11-for-17 shooting, including a dagger of a three-point play with less than two minutes left that tied the game. Cousins was also a plus 26 on that night as the Suns had no answer for him.

DeMarcus Cousins destroyed the Suns down the stretch, but none hurt as much as this game-tying And 1. (AP Photo/Thearon Henderson)

Phoenix Suns center Marcin Gortat said after last Wednesday’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers that “it can’t get worse.”

The brutally honest statement could be challenged after the Suns (14-18) fell to the NBA-worst Sacramento Kings on Sunday night, 94-89.

What looked like another defensive night for the Suns after one quarter slowly fell apart and collapsed entirely in the final six minutes of the game. After a Grant Hill dunk gave the Suns an 87-75 advantage with 5:50 to play, the Suns’ defense seemed to shut down altogether.

The Kings (7-24) went on a 19-2 run in the final 5:31 of the game to hand the Suns their fifth loss in six games. Kings rookie forward DeMarcus Cousins led Sacramento with a career-best 28 points, 13 of which came in the fourth quarter.

“It wasn’t really the fourth quarter, it was the last five minutes of the game,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry told Suns.com. “That’s where the game was decided. We played great up until that point.”

The ice-cold finish was the polar opposite of the Suns’ start to the game. Coming off their best defensive effort in years against the Pistons, the Suns again looked like a new team on defense, allowing the Kings to score just 17 first-quarter points on 23.1 percent shooting.

The Suns went cold in the second quarter, allowing more points (18) in the first six minutes than they had in the first quarter and opening 1-of-10 from the field. The game of hot and cold continued when Suns starters Steve Nash, Mickael Pietrus and Hill returned to the lineup and led a 17-4 Suns run to close the half up 48-39.

Things still seemed OK for the Suns, having allowed an average of 19.5 points in the first two quarters, but the peaks and valleys got worse in the second half. The up-and-down nature of the Suns on both ends of the floor in this game could be part of the adjustment process to new players and the new simplified defense, but it could also highlight a greater issue with consistency.

The Phoenix defense started to slip in the third quarter, allowing 26 points, but maintaining an eight-point advantage after three quarters. The Suns even started the fourth quarter on a 6-0 run to go up by 14 before the massive collapse ensued.

A big reason the Kings hung around for so long was their domination of the boards. Sacramento won the rebounding battle 60-32, including 18-9 on offensive rebounds. The game was the Suns’ worst rebounding effort this season, based on rebounding margin.

Nash posted on Twitter earlier in the day that “The Suns need a Dub. Bad.” Nash clearly knew that the Suns couldn’t afford a loss to the cellar-dwelling Kings and he did everything in his power get a win, going a perfect 8-for-8 from the field while notching 20 points and 12 assists. Nash, however, went scoreless in seven fourth-quarter minutes.

“I was looking back and I could have tried to be more aggressive and I feel like maybe I made a mistake,” Nash told Suns.com. “But we had really good looks down the stretch. When we don’t make them you look up and say I could have been more aggressive. We could have easily gone in and won by 10. We missed and now we lose so I’ll kick myself for it.”

Vince Carter added 17 points for the Suns and Gortat, who again got many more minutes than starting center Robin Lopez, contributed 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks. Gortat’s play may be one positive for the Suns to take back to Phoenix, as the big man seems to be getting more and more comfortable, particularly on the pick-and-roll with Nash.

The other positive, though it feels silly to say after the fourth-quarter bloodbath, was the Suns’ defense— through three and a half quarters. The Suns were contesting shots, forcing turnovers (15 for 14 points) and getting stops. If they can play with that kind of defensive energy for four quarters, they won’t just be beating terrible teams like the Kings but also competing with contenders on a nightly basis.

“They completed plays and we didn’t,” Gentry said. “That was the difference in the game right there. It didn’t have anything to do with attitude or thinking that we had it in the bag or anything like that. They outplayed us the last five minutes.”

It’s clear that the Suns’ focus has shifted to defense. Sunday’s game marked the second straight game the Suns have scored under 100 points (though they probably should have), but on both occasions it wasn’t so much because of the opposing team’s defense as it was the Suns’ increased defensive efforts.

This game came down to the Suns’ inability to finish games, something now-departed Jason Richardson characterized early in the season as a lack of killer instinct. Three quarters of basketball isn’t enough, and the Suns certainly know it won’t be in the coming three-game homestand that brings the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers to US Airways Center.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do to secure the win,” Gentry said. “In the NBA when you don’t do that that’s the end result.”

And1

With Cousins’ 28 points, the Suns have now allowed career-best nights to two of the top five draft picks from the 2010 draft. The Suns allowed No. 2 overall pick Evan Turner to score a career-high 23 points in last Wednesday’s Phoenix loss … The Suns are now 1-10 when failing to score in triple digits. … Gortat was on the floor for 36 minutes while Lopez only saw 12 minutes of action, increasing speculation that Gortat may be headed to the starting lineup.

Suns

Kings

As long as Kings point guard Tyreke Evans isn’t hitting half court shots, the Suns should be able to make it two straight wins Sunday night.

It literally doesn’t get worse than the Kings.

Sacramento got a rare (fluke) win Wednesday over the Grizzlies and fell to the Nuggets on Saturday, but prior to the win over Memphis, hadn’t won since Dec. 8. The Kings six wins have come over opponents with a combined record of 59-139.

Let’s just say there’s a good chance of a No. 1 draft pick in Sacramento’s future.

It certainly needs no reminder though that the other team in purple isn’t having a stellar season either. With a win over the Detroit Pistons on Friday, the Suns notched their 14th win, something they had done by Nov. 29 last season.

The Suns have been spending a lot of (justified) extra time working on defense in practice after an embarrassing loss to the 76ers and, even though it was Detroit, it started to show in Friday’s victory.

Employing a simplified defense, the Suns held the Pistons to 75 points, which is about 20 points fewer than Detroit averages each game. It was also the lowest opponent total for the Suns this season, lowest opponent shooting percentage (40.8) and just the seventh time this season the Suns have held a foe under 100 points.

It’s too early to say if the revert to the simpler defense is going to take the 2010-11 season in a new direction because it was the Pistons, and the same goes for the matchup with the Kings, who have not beat the Suns since March 29, 2009.

Sacramento features a talented collection of individual players who seem unable to play well as a team. It just seems logical that a team led by Tyreke Evans and supported by Carl Landry and DeMarcus Cousins wouldn’t have a problem at least competing, but that’s just not the case.

The Kings had high hopes for their future and those hopes have been obliterated by a season that could very well put former Suns and current Kings coach Paul Westphal out of a job. It may be Westphal who’s unable to get his players to mesh and produce, but it seems like it’s also an issue of personalities and lack of team players.

Despite all the Kings’ problems, they are excelling under the basket. They are the league’s fourth-best rebounding team (43.0 per game), while the Suns are 29th (39.0 per game).

The ever-growing presence of Marcin Gortat in the Suns’ lineup has helped with rebounding, as the big man is adding almost six boards per game off the bench since the Dec. 18 trade. The other non-Vince Carter addition to the team, Mickael Pietrus, has been a boost on defense as well and has contributed a surprising 13.3 points off the bench as a Sun.

Pietrus’ insertion into the starting lineup Friday made for the ninth starting lineup the Suns have used this season. The move, made for defensive reasons against Detroit, will carry over over to Sunday’s game, according to Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic.

The Suns were already struggling to find an identity before making the major trade with the Orlando Magic and had to nearly start the search over after it. Another starting lineup change is certainly part of that process, though it might not stick. The actual (and not pretend) increased emphasis on defense is part of that as well.

The Suns may still take more time than desired to figure out who they are, but a matchup with the Kings should allow a little room to work on that. It gets much tougher after though when the Lakers and Knicks come to Phoenix.

Playing the Kings is no guaranteed win, a lesson the Suns have learned with plenty of teams (76ers, Clippers, Grizzlies…), but it’s about as close as guarantees come in the NBA right now.

And 1

Undrafted rookie center Garret Siler has been assigned to the Iowa Energy of the NBA Developmental League, the Suns announced Sunday.

The 6-foot-11-inch Augusta State product, signed in late September, has totaled 35 minutes of game action this season, averaging 1.3 points and 1.5 rebounds per game.

Siler should get a chance to play legitimate minutes with the Energy (11-5) while the Suns are set for size at the moment after the addition of Marcin Gortat from the Orlando Magic, which also led to the release of Earl Barron.

PHOENIX — Do you remember the day your first son was born?

It probably was one of the most memorable days of your life, the kind of day you can still remember the most miniscule details of.

Steve Nash lived that day on Friday when Matteo Joel Nash, weighing seven pounds and seven ounces, was born into the world, and yet playing in front of his parents and siblings for the first time this year, Papa Steve delivered his best performance of the season: 28 points, 14 assists, seven boards, 13-for-18 shooting and a +14 in 35 minutes.

“Anytime you have your first son there’s going to be extra juice,” Jason Richardson said. “It’s incredible. It shows why he’s still a top-five point guard in this league. A guy who’s almost 37 years old isn’t supposed to perform the way that he does.”

The game seemed to be slipping away in the fourth when the Kings cut Phoenix’s lead down to 77-75 with 8:28 remaining, but Nash immediately re-entered and led Phoenix on a 13-4 spurt that essentially put the game out of reach. MVSteve punctuated things by throwing a beautiful alley-oop to Richardson to put the Suns up 12 with five minutes left and Sacramento never again seriously threatened Phoenix’s eventual 103-89 victory.

Nash recorded his third straight double-digit assist performance after not reaching that mark in his first five games, and he had not enjoyed a 28 and 14 game since March 29, 2009, also against the Kings. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this marked just Nash’s third 28-14-7 game of his entire career.

“We were the victim of a Hall of Fame player having a Hall of Fame night,” said Kings head coach Paul Westphal. “Everything we tried, he had the answer for. If I wasn’t sitting on the visitor’s bench, I would be applauding him because it was an unbelievable performance by Nash.”

Added Tyreke Evans, who also neared a triple-double with a 18-7-9 line: “Nash was being Nash, hitting shots in the lane, pullups. We couldn’t stop him tonight and that was pretty much it. He changed the game.”

It truly was a vintage performance by Nash, who did not speak to reporters after the game to go spend time with his family.

He controlled every aspect of the game and enjoyed a monster scoring outing without even making a three. Nash set the tone with a 10-point, six-assist, four-rebound first quarter and then finished things off with five points and five assists in the fourth.

The Kings should be used to this by now as Two Time torched them for 30 points twice last season and averaged 24.0 points and 11.3 assists per game against them last year, the most he scored against any opponent.

Suddenly Nash’s “cold” start to the season seems like a long time ago. He’s averaging 19.9 points per game, which would be a career high, and his 9.5 assists per game and 51.7 percent shooting percentage are right back where they should be. Nash is shooting 65 percent from the floor and averaging 13.3 assists per contest in his last three to make the early season “slump” seem like a joke.

That’s not to mention the effect he’s had on unifying the team and bringing together disparate pieces like only Steve Nash can.

“It’s like having that big brother out there making everything easy for you,” said Hakim Warrick, who Nash set up often on his way to an 18-point day on 6-for-8 shooting. “All you have to do is just go out there and finish. He takes control as a general out there. He saw that they were out there blitzing, and he was making adjustments just like a great quarterback, being able to go out there and make all the moves.”

Nash, who opened the season with nine turnovers in Portland and entered the game averaging close to five miscues a contest, turned it over just twice, which tied the Atlanta game for his best turnover game of the year. The Suns as a whole turned it over just 11 times after giving up the rock twice as many times Monday in Memphis.

“We managed our turnovers tonight, we shot the ball well,” Alvin Gentry said of his squad, which out shot the Kings 52 percent to 41 percent. “The only thing that leaps out at you off the stat sheet is the offensive rebounds, which is frightening considering we’re going to play Minnesota [and Kevin Love] soon. We’ve just got to find a way. We’re working extremely hard, we’re trying to get better. Rebounding we’ve just got to find a way to do it. There’s no secret formula, we’ve got to just man up and find a way to come up with some rebounds.”

Sacramento corralled 21 offensive boards, which means the Suns collected just 58 percent of their available defensive boards. For context Suns entered the day ranked last in defensive rebound rate, grabbing 66 percent of the available defensive boards. With Dwight Howard, Orlando snatches 81.3 percent of its available defensive rebounds.

Gentry said it was on the big men as J-Rich led the Suns with eight rebounds, Nash got seven and Josh Childress was next with five off the bench, a total no Suns big man reached.

“We did everything we’re supposed to do on the defensive end besides that aspect of it,” J-Rich said. “We played great team defense, we held them to 40 percent, but we’ve just got to find a way to rebound the ball. That’s the only thing we need to do better.”

With as brutal of a four-game stretch as you will ever see starting on Sunday — four games in five nights of at the Lakers, home vs. Denver, at Miami and at Orlando — the Suns absolutely needed to win this one, even if the bigger Kings predictably controlled the glass.

The Suns’ biggest goal throughout this brutal November schedule must be to avoid getting buried, which could have easily happened if a loss to Sacramento had preceded that upcoming treacherous stretch.

“We talked about the importance of winning this game — we really needed to win this game,” Gentry said. “We hadn’t really done that in a few years, you know, talk about winning. We talk about playing well and doing what we are supposed to do, but we really needed to win this game tonight just for our own psyche.”

Buoyed by the emotion of watching the birth of his first son, Steve Nash made sure that would be the case.

And 1

Josh Childress will be an honorary captain when the No. 6 Stanford football team takes on ASU Saturday night at Sun Devil Stadium. He was excited to be selected for such an honor, which includes joining the Cardinal for the opening coin toss, and he plans on motivating his alma mater’s football team in whatever way we can.

Childress also will be getting some Stanford gear for Channing Frye to wear during an upcoming week after Childress’ Cardinal pounded Frye’s Wildcats last Saturday. Frye will have to wear whatever attire Childress gives him for a week, and he plans on posting pictures of Frye in his Stanford threads every day on Twitter.

Suns owner Robert Sarver, a UA grad, also owes Childress a little something.

“Robert ducked out on me,” Childress joked. “He made a bet, too, but he’s been hiding from me.” …

The Suns have won 26 home games in a row against divisional opponent not named the Lakers. … Phoenix has won 10 straight homes games against the Kings and six consecutive overall. The Suns have won 12 of 13 overall against Sacramento, but you might remember the one practically knocked Phoenix out of the 2008-09 playoff race. … Phoenix’s 10 straight home wins over the Kings have come by an average of 20.9 points, with eight of the 10 coming by at least 14. … The Kings’ 89 points and 40.9 percent shooting were both opponent season lows. The Suns entered the day last in defensive field goal percentage after allowing two of their previous four opponents to shoot better than 50 percent. … Hakim Warrick has scored at least 16 points in five of eight games after doing so just 10 times all of last season. … The Suns shot better than 50 percent for the second time in three games after not doing that in any of their first five contests. … Jason Thompson, a player I feel would look great in a Suns uniform, got his first DNP-CD of the season. John Hollinger has Thompson on his list of players who should be used differently. Warrick made the cut as well, as Hollinger agrees he should be starting over Hedo Turkoglu, who put up an unspectacular 6-4-2 line in this one.

Kings

Suns

PHOENIX — It’s hard to classify the eighth game of an 82-game schedule as crucial.

But after glancing at the Suns’ upcoming schedule, that’s exactly what Friday’s game is.

Next week Phoenix plays two sets of back-to-back games against arguably four of the top 10 teams in the NBA (Lakers, Nuggets, Heat and Magic).

But for a squad that has yet to find its identity, a matchup with the Kings might be just what the doctor ordered before facing a gauntlet of title contenders.

“We’re a team that’s trying to find ourselves,” coach Alvin Gentry said. “We’ve been in all the games and had an opportunity to win but it’s something you’ve got to learn by trial and error.”

And for the Suns, that process comes down to fixing two areas that have plagued the team throughout its first seven games: turnovers and rebounding.

“The biggest thing for us is as we get more cohesive, we are going to have less turnovers,” Steve Nash said. “It remains to be seen about the rebounding. We have to scrap and everybody on the court is going to have to take a little bit more pride in rebounding.”

Phoenix’s turnover ratio (percentage of possessions that result in a turnover) is No. 25 in the league at 26.8 percent, while the Suns’ rank No. 28 in rebounding differential.

“We’re [doing a good job at] stopping their initial offensive effort but they are getting rebounds and that’s where you get yourself in trouble,” Gentry said. “[And] you just can’t defend a turnover, because most the time they are going to have numbers.”

The Kings are averaging just over 16 fast-break points per game this season but are coming off an 98-89 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in which they allowed a career-high 42 points to Michael Beasley.

Leading Sacramento with just under 20 points per game is the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans.

Six Kings, however, average double-digit points, including first-round draft pick DeMarcus Cousins.

As far as the Suns’ lineup goes, Gentry is not ready to make any judgments so early into the season.

“We’ve considered everything but I don’t think after seven games you can make [those] decisions,” Gentry said. ” We’ve got to be a little patient.”

Raising Robin

It’s been a struggle thus far for Robin Lopez.

Watching him through the preseason and through the early stages of the regular season, it’s clear he’s still not comfortable after last March’s back injury.

“Robin is still trying to get back to himself physically,” Nash said. “He’s not moving the same as he did last year. He’s not covering the same amount of ground and that takes time. We have to be patient with him.”

But patience has to turn into production at some point. And as long as the center is still struggling to find his form, the Suns will suffer along with him.

“It might be causing me to think too much,” Lopez said. “I’m not quite as explosive as I was last season. I need to start getting to the boards again. I’m getting my hands on them; I just need to come down with them.”

The third-year player is averaging just 5.7 points and 5.1 rebounds this season and it is clear his development has stalled almost completely.

“We’ve got to get him back; he was a lot more athletic last year and was able to finish,” Gentry said. “For us to have a successful season, Robin is going to be a big part of it.”

Lopez blames some of his subpar performance on the variety of defenders he’s faced.

“The last time I came back we we’re just playing against the Lakers and that’s just one team, one look,” Lopez said. “You don’t know what different teams are going to throw at you.”

Robin Lopez and the Suns could not keep DeMarcus Cousins and the Kings off the boards in their preseason loss. (AP Photo/Steve Yeater)

The worst thing one can do when evaluating a preseason game is to just glance at the final score.

So “Kings 109, Suns 95” doesn’t do this one justice.

The Kings played this one with largely regular season rotations, whereas the Suns played it like it was, well, the first game of the preseason.

Playing many of their regulars, the Suns led by seven at the half only to see the Kings outscore them 58-37 in the second half, including 29-15 in the fourth. To begin the deciding period the Suns went with a lineup of Chucky Atkins, Matt Janning and Dwayne Jones flanking Jared Dudley and Hakim Warrick while the King played a pretty regular lineup of Tyreke Evans, Omri Casspi, Jason Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins with Eugene Jeter.

Steve Nash and Grant Hill logged just six minutes of time, Hedo Turkoglu 16 and Jason Richardson’s stellar evening ended midway through the third. Meanwhile, many of the King’s regulars played close to their usual minutes, led by Carl Landry (35), Cousins (30) and Evans (28).

That being said there were some definite bright spots and disappointments in this one.

Richardson led the Suns with 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting, including seven in the first quarter with Phoenix’s regulars. By the end of last season he finally was comfortable with his situation in Phoenix, and now without Amare on the roster it would not surprise me to see him lead the Suns in scoring.

Robin Lopez’s 15 points and six boards were nice to see as Lopez is expected to going to be relied upon to become a bigger part of the offense this season, and Hakim Warrick went for 11 on 4-for-5 shooting in just 16 minutes. Now that’s efficiency.

The biggest negative without question was the rebounding battle. The Suns got pounded in this department to the tune of 47-36, which was a common theme last preseason as well before the Suns became a positive rebounding team for the season (although still porous on the defensive glass).

Lopez led the team with six boards in 31 minutes and four more players corralled five (Richardson, Childress, Dudley and Jones) on an overall lackluster rebounding night.

Cousins grabbed 16 boards himself (five offensive) while playing a minute less than Lopez, and Thompson got to 10 more off the bench. This will not be the last time this preseason that rebounding is brought up.

The Suns also knocked down just 2-of-16 long balls (12.5 percent), but that’s not even worth worrying about at this point. It’s safe to say the second-best three-point shooting team in NBA history last season will be able to knock down the long ball once again, even without Stoudemire clearing space. I would chalk this up to tired legs from training camp and no Channing Frye, who missed the game for the birth of his first child.

In other negative news, Goran Dragic recorded a -24 in 25 minutes and Jared Dudley a -17 in 27 minutes. Still, hard to get too worked up about that when they played many of their minutes with some of the Suns’ scrubs.

Hedo Turkoglu’s 0-for-5 wasn’t pretty, but I’m more disappointed to see Earl Clark score just two points in his 17 minutes, least on the team although perhaps Clark taking only three shots can be seen as a positive sign.

For the Kings, Evans’ game-high 26 points is to be expected and by the end of the year I think the 16-16 line put up my Cousins will be no outlier. I’m on the record as saying Cousins will earn Rookie of the Year honors, and I think all of the GMs outside of Washington that passed on him will be asking for a do over.

I’m pretty high on Sacramento altogether. They are certainly young, but for the first time since the days of C-Webb and Vlade, talent lines the roster.

Happy birthday to Grant

Grant Hill turned 38 on Tuesday, which means he’s old enough for many of the Suns’ youngsters to have had his poster on their wall when he was an All-NBA performer for Detroit and they were grade school kids.

As the third-oldest player in the NBA — behind rapidly declining former Suns Kurt Thomas and Shaquille O’Neal — it’s astounding that Hill is still starting and contributing to a Suns squad with a whole cavalry of small forwards behind him.

Scott Sereday from 48 Minutes of Hell recently wrote a post on the positive effect of reducing a player’s workload on longevity. I e-mailed him about how Hill fits into this hypothesis, and although his situation put him outside of the data set Sereday used it certainly makes sense to me that Hill is making up for some of his lost time during the Orlando years at the back end of his career.

I also find it interesting that the Nos. 2 (Jason Kidd) and 3 (Hill) picks in the 1994 NBA Draft are still chugging along, but the No. 1 pick (Glenn Robinson) has been out of the league for five years already.

We shall see if Hill finally acts his age this season or if he will once again prove to be a valuable all-around contributor to the Suns.

Up next

The Suns next head to Vancouver, Canada, for Wednesday’s 7 p.m. MST tilt against the Toronto Raptors. This will be the first of two preseason games between the Suns and Raptors in Canada, but we can save the Hedo boos for the other one (which is in Toronto). This one will be more about Steve Nash receiving cheers in his home province, and a happy reunion between the Suns and LB and a chilly reunion between Turkoglu and his former mates.

Clippers: Clips Nation | SBNation Recap

Kings: Sactown Royalty | Cowbell Kingdom | SBNation Recap

Lakers: Silver Screen and Roll | Forum Blue & Gold | NBAtipoff | SBNation Recap

Suns: Bright Side Of The Sun | SB Nation Arizona | ValleyoftheSuns | SBNation Recap

Warriors: Golden State of Mind | SBNation Recap

Recaps: All Previews