PHOENIX — Channing Frye had been suffering through an April to forget heading into Monday’s matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Frye averaged 8.5 points on 35.8 percent shooting from the field and 28 percent three-point shooting during the first six games this month, so of course it makes perfect sense that Frye would go berserk with a career-high 33 points on 12-for-18 shooting from the field and a franchise-record-tying nine three-pointers in 14 attempts in Phoenix’s 135-127 overtime win over the Wolves.

Just last week Frye missed all four of his shots (all threes) against these same Timberwolves, yet tonight Channing found his groove and splashed shots throughout the game.

“I’m like the stock market,” Frye said. “I may play bad for a week, but it’s not going to last like that.”

Frye busting out against Minnesota shouldn’t come as a total surprise as he drilled seven treys against the Wolves on Dec. 15 and hit four, five and six against Minnesota at different points last season. You would think by now the Wolves would understand allowing Frye to get into a rhythm is a very bad idea.

Frye tied the franchise record Quentin Richardson originally set on Dec. 29, 2004, in New Orleans and he became the first power forward to knock down that many long balls since Donyell Marshall hit 12 on March 13, 2005.

“Even though you are wide open it is still tough to make that many threes when it comes to an NBA game,” Jared Dudley said. “To have that many I don’t care if you’re wide open or not, it’s impressive. We needed all of them, especially tonight.”

Frye has now recorded all three of his 30-point games as a Sun since Feb. 15 (24 games) after previously producing just three in his first 411 career contests.

Since I’m working on a story on the Suns’ vaunted training staff (AKA The Warlocks) for the summer, I found it interesting that Frye credited them largely for helping him play so well in this one after the rough road swing.

Frye’s right butt cheek was shut off, according to the forward, which caused problems for his thigh and hamstring. But the training staff got that issue firing properly and Frye showed what he can do when in proper alignment.

“At this point in my career it’s pretty simple,” Frye said. “I’m either on balance or I’m off balance. If I’m on balance it’s going in, if I’m off it’s not. I think that’s why Steve is such a phenomenal shooter, because he’s always on balance.”

Frye led a Suns attack that shot 54.3 percent from the floor and 62.1 percent from long range (18-for-29) while enjoying one of their more efficient offensive performances of the year (125.0 per 100), but they gave it up at the other end as a Kevin Love-less Wolves squad hit 54.7 percent of their attempts. Minnesota shot 61.7 percent in the first half and largely got whatever they wanted during the first 24 minutes.

The Suns yielded 117.6 points per 100 possessions in this one yet sadly it was their best defensive output of the last three games, which speaks much more to how atrocious they were in New Orleans and Dallas than anything done well in this one.

“We weren’t very good defensively,” said head coach Alvin Gentry. “Obviously, we gave up 65 points in the first half and they shot 62 percent. We got beat off the dribble; we got beat on post ups; we got beat on flash cuts — so we didn’t guard very good at all the first half. I thought we did a much better job the second half.”

A meaningless game for both teams highlighted by sloppy defense all around and fits of offensive carelessness from Minnesota suddenly became very interesting when Martell Webster drilled a trey to put his team up one with 38 seconds left.

The Suns then got Frye a look for three but he suffered a rare miss, which bounced right back into Dudley’s hands, and he dished it to Nash for the kind of clutch three you wish Two Time would take more often.

After Nash put the Suns up two, Michael Beasley –- who played a fantastic offensive game with 26 points — broke Dudley’s ankles on his way to an And 1 bucket, but Beasley missed the ensuing foul shot.

That gave the Suns one last chance to win it in regulation but after Dudley had a layup blocked out of bounds, Hill’s five-foot bank shot just fell off the rim.

Frye hit his ninth triple during Phoenix’s franchise-record ninth overtime of the season to take a 126-124 lead the Suns would never give up, and Dudley sealed the deal with a three of his own to cap an 8-0 run that put Phoenix up seven.

While Frye was the star on this night, Dudley played the best supporting actor role with 26 points on 10-for-15 shooting to go with five threes in as many attempts. He added eight boards (four offensive), three assists, a whopping five steals and a plus 15 in 38 minutes during this super all-around effort that continues to cement him as a starter in the 2011-12 lineup.

Steve Nash likely clinched his assists crown with 16 helpers in this one, with Frye and Dudley often the beneficiaries, on a night Nash took just four shots and scored only three points before his late triple.

Even if Nash were to go without an assist on Wednesday, Rajon Rondo would need to dish out 18 dimes to overtake him, so Nash will likely earn his fifth assists title in seven years as a Sun against the Spurs.

Hill’s 21-point effort that includes eight assists and four boards ensures that he will become the seventh 38-year-old in NBA history to average at least 13.0 points per game. It’s not a bad list to join: Kareem, Jordan, Malone, Reggie, Parish and Stockton. Also, Hill’s 13 20-point games mark the most for a player his age since Miller in 2004-05.

This game also featured plenty of play from the youngsters on Phoenix’s bench, headlined by Garret Siler receiving 12:04 of non-garbage time. Siler scored two points and grabbed five boards while Robin Lopez got the dreaded DNP-CD. It sure says something when the Suns want to get a longer look at Siler than Lopez.

With Vince Carter out with an knee or a thigh injury (Gentry wasn’t quite sure which one, which gives you an indication of the severity of that ailment) we also saw some of Zabian Dowdell at the two guard (which wasn’t pretty, as he was 2-for-9), and Aaron Brooks didn’t impress much in his five-point, five-assist stint in 18 minutes.

The Suns gutted out their eighth straight victory over Minnesota and have now swept 10 season series in 2010-11, kind of amazing for a team that won’t even finish at .500.

Although a win is a win it’s not good that the Suns needed a career game from Frye and a stellar team shooting night from long range just to beat the worst team in the league without their best player in overtime, but hey, it sure beats what happened Sunday night in Dallas.

And 1

With the loss the Suns clinched the 13th pick in the draft unless they get lucky and wind up with one of the top three slots in the draft lottery. … Retiring play by play man Gary Bender was honored before the fourth quarter with an “18” Suns jersey with his name on the back commemorating the number of years of service he has provided to the franchise. Bender said he was “a little overwhelmed” and that “this is one of the highlights of my entire life.”

PHOENIX — You might not know it by his results, but Channing Frye does not believe in the hot hand theory.

Whether he’s shooting 1-for-7 and 2-for-11 as he has in the past few weeks or 12-for-16 as he did in Tuesday’s 102-101 win over the Utah Jazz, Frye always tries to shoot the same shots with the same balance and the same focus on the rim.

But after Suns assistant Igor Kokoskov challenged Frye about his shooting before Tuesday’s game, the UA product could not miss during a 7-for-7 first quarter that included five threes and resulted in 19 points, a total he had not surpassed in a game since going off for 25 on Jan. 21 in Washington.

“He was like, ‘We pay you to make some shots, so you better go out there and make some,’” Frye said of Kokoskov. “So, I was like, ‘All right.’ I just went out there and shot and just had confidence in shooting them. My teammates kept putting me in situations to succeed.”

Frye went on to score a career-high 31 points to go along with 11 rebounds for his first career 30-10 game and his fourth career 30-point game overall as well as his first as a Sun. The Suns are now 6-0 when Frye scores 20 this year and 5-0 when he puts up a double-double.

You could see Frye was locked in from the tip as his monster first helped the Suns overcome an eight-turnover opening period, and his hot shooting continued into the second half. He even scored on consecutive post-ups early in the second half when Utah switched a smaller defender onto him.

But tonight was all about the long ball for Channing, who finished with six on the game and most certainly reached “He’s on fire” status.

“He was in a great zone,” said Mickael Pietrus. “I’ve been through that before, and it’s pretty fun.”

What I liked most about his performance is he didn’t start forcing heat check jumpers. Gentry even chided his team for not getting Channing the ball more as he attempted one less shot than he did during back-to-back 6-for-17 and 5-for-17 appearances to start the month.

To me it’s a very good thing that Frye scored his 31 points on 75 percent shooting in the flow of the offense, choosing not to force anything. As Frye said afterward, he was happy to shoot when he was open, but if it’s not it’s nothing personal, he will make the right read and move the ball.

When players think they’re hot they often tend to start jacking up bad shots that ultimately cost their team, but Frye stayed within his means tonight and that led to a narrow victory.

Channing’s monster night was a welcome sign for a player whose shooting touch has left him all too often this season. He’s shooting 41.5 percent from the field (108th among qualified players and worst on the Suns) and 38.0 percent from three (55th after ranking sixth at 43.9 percent last season).

His PER is down to 11.81 from 15.09 last season, his Wins Produced numbers show him as a below average player and his adjusted plus/minus numbers have dropped from last year as well.

I recently surveyed some advanced stats writers from the Wages of Wins Network on Channing, and they basically told me those numbers don’t lie despite Gentry playing Frye 36 minutes a game since Jan. 9. Gentry likes how his ability to space the floor opens up the game for the rest of the Suns, so I’m still hesitant to accept that Frye’s playing as bad as the advanced analytics say he is.

But there’s no debating one thing about Frye, and it’s that when he gets rolling he can carry a team to victory as he did tonight.

The Suns still needed to rip off an 11-0 run after trailing by eight with seven minutes left, and once again it was Frye providing a dagger from long range to tie things up before Pietrus gave the Suns the lead for good with a triple to put them up three with 3:35 remaining.

The Suns nearly coughed up that advantage after suffering a shot-clock violation for their 19th turnover with 16.5 remaining during a possession that involved lots of standing around and not much else while the Suns nursed a one-point lead.

But Grant Hill forced a Deron Williams miss, Frye made one of two free throws, and then Marcin Gortat rotated over to defend Paul Millsap cutting to the basket for a potential game-tying layup before Millsap fumbled the ball away for a game-clinching turnover.

With the win the Suns swept the season series with the Jazz for the first time since 1982-83. That, of course, means they own the tiebreaker against Utah, who leads Phoenix by 2 1/2 games for the No. 8 seed in the West but is ahead by just one game in the loss column. The Suns are also one game out in the loss column behind Denver and two back of New Orleans and Portland.

After dropping Sunday’s heartbreaker to the lowly Kings, the Suns continued their stellar run of late, winning their seventh game in nine tries and their sixth out of seven against winning teams.

Despite how well this team is playing, the Suns have also learned during this stretch about the size of their margin for error these days, according to their captain.

“We’re the type of team that the minute we think we’ve arrived we’re going to get socked in the mouth, so we’ve got to come out every day with everything to prove and try to be the underdog,” Steve Nash said. “We’re a team that’s got to go out there and feel like we have to prove ourselves every night and earn it. If you take one little bit off the gas we get pretty mediocre pretty fast.”

With Frye drilling shots every time he touched the ball, the Suns looked far better than mediocre against Utah.

Rotational ramblings

Vince Carter did not log a second in the fourth quarter for the fourth straight game, scoring 10 points in 25 minutes of the first three.

Pietrus played the entire fourth in his place and did a fantastic job in that period, scoring eight points, grabbing four rebounds and blocking a whopping three shots while playing aggressive defense.

“Pietrus made some huge plays — rebounds, blocked shots, things like that,” Gentry said. “He was really good there.”

Added Nash, “It’s great when he makes shots, but what I love is him blocking shots, grabbing big rebounds. Tonight he was so active, you see this athleticism you don’t see every night that’s pretty impressive. He really was huge for us tonight.”

Since they both play better defense and can provide similar outside shooting to Carter, I wouldn’t mind seeing Pietrus or Jared Dudley continue to close out games.

After playing Goran Dragic for five minutes in the second quarter in his first action since missing seven games with a toe injury, Gentry went with Zabian Dowdell for five minutes in the second half.

The Suns lost eight points under Dragic’s watch and nine with Dowdell, making Nash’s plus/minus look real nice at plus 18.

Dragic scored two points and got a rebound and an assist but he turned it over twice and failed to control the game.

“It’s Goran’s first game back and I thought he was a little rusty,” Gentry said. “That’s why we have Zabian on the team, to be able to stick him in there. He’s played the last couple of games and been pretty good, so we just thought in that situation Zabian would probably be a little more stable.”

Dragic agreed with the rusty assessment and added his legs were “a little heavy,” but he had no problem with Gentry making him earn his backup point guard role back.

And 1

Nash passed Gary Payton for seventh on the NBA’s all-time assist list, just missing another 20-15 game with 20 points and 14 assists. “He was always good to me,” Nash said of Payton. “I remember my junior year in college him inviting me to work out in his backyard in Oakland, pretty cool. It was amazing to know where I was then and to pass him was like beyond my wildest dreams, and I love the guy.” … The Suns held their fifth straight opponent under 46 percent shooting, their longest such streak since Jan. 5-15, 2010. Eight of their last nine opponents have shot under 46 percent. … Frye’s 19 points in the first tied Hakim Warrick (second quarter Nov. 24 vs. Chicago) for the Suns’ individual high quarter. … The Suns grabbed just three offensive rebounds, none of which came from a big.

Steve Nash's spinal injury doomed the Suns in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

The Phoenix Suns have been abysmal defensively all season, and they’ve been just as bad offensively in games missed by Steve Nash.

That trend continued tonight after Nash went down with a weird spinal injury four and a half minutes into Phoenix’s contest in Dallas after colliding with Tyson Chandler, as the Suns mounted little resistance thereafter in a 106-91 Mavericks rout.

Nash suffered a stinger on the play and immediately lost all feeling in his limbs as he signaled for the Suns’ training staff. Nash stayed on the ground for a few minutes before retiring to the locker room as he started to regain feeling in his arms and legs.

“The impact didn’t hurt at all,” Nash told The Arizona Republic. “It was really light. It was the angle I guess. I had 10 seconds where I thought, ‘Oh (expletive).’ I couldn’t feel anything and my head was stuck. My eyes were moving and my head wasn’t. It was a very strange sensation. Obviously, I was really worried.”

Planet Orange was just as concerned as it watched Nash in a heap on the floor seemingly dazed and unwilling to get up at first, a sequence ESPN played over and over that started with a Caron Butler strip and then the collision with Chandler as both players tried to recover the ball.

Since Nash suffers from spondylolisthesis, an issue that concerns spinal vertebra, it’s a huge concern that this blow could knock his delicate body out of kilter. Two Time said after the game that he’s “optimistic” that he can return on this road trip if he continues to improve as much as he did by the end of this contest.

The Suns surely need him to heal quickly as they didn’t have much of a chance after closing the first quarter on an 11-1 to take a short-lived lead without him.

Goran Dragic departed a tied game at the 9:08 mark of the second, but when he returned at the 5:24 mark the Suns already trailed by nine, as Phoenix failed to get much of anything going offensively without a point guard.

Dallas continued to pour it on in the third, holding the Suns to 17 points in each of the middle periods as the Suns failed to get the kind of looks they normally do.

“The game changed without Nash,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle told reporters. “He’s one of the best players ever. He was aggressive and was going to have a major impact on the game.”

Added Gentry: “Obviously it changes everything that we do.”

The Suns have now been thoroughly outplayed in all three games Nash has missed this season (and four if you count the Miami game when he was an injured shell of his usual self).

They have lost the three games by an average of 16.3 points per game while averaging 95.0 points per contest and shooting 43.3 percent from the field and 21.6 percent from three after tonight’s season-low 39.3 percent shooting performance that included 5-for-21 marksmanship from deep (23.8 percent). With Nash (even including the Miami stinker) the Suns average 110 points on 48 percent shooting from the field and nearly 40 percent shooting from deep.

As if we needed any more proof of how much Nash matters to this basketball team, the Suns entered the night 24.15 points per 100 possessions better with Nash on the floor, according to his adjusted plus-minus on Basketball Value, and even unadjusted the Suns are 16.48 points better with Nash. Offensively they average an off the charts 117.39 points per 100 possessions with Nash but just 102.90 without him, and that was before tonight.

Gentry defended the play of Goran Dragic in his postgame presser, but he’s still the understudy while Nash is the maestro. Dragic put up a solid line of 14 points and 10 assists in his 40 minutes, and the Suns were much worse when he rested and they lacked a point guard altogether. But he just doesn’t create the same kind of opportunities Nash does, and on a couple occasions he missed passes that Nash makes routine (although I suppose you can’t blame him for that).

Like a backup running back that gives a defense a different look a few carries at a time, Dragon is a great change of pace point guard for the Suns, especially when he’s out there with defenders like Dudley and Childress who can create the frenetic pace he thrives in. But the Suns have severely lacked offensive flow and become stagnant in their three games with Dragon.

Of all the stats without Nash, it can’t be a coincidence that they’ve gone from being one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league with their floor general to a team that can’t buy a long ball. Nash’s penetration creates so many open looks, shots they just didn’t get tonight.

The Suns must hit the three-pointer to win, as they dropped to 1-8 when shooting less than 30 percent from three (including all three games without Nash). They are 5-3 when between 30-45 percent and 6-2 when greater than 45 percent, according to ESPN’s game notes.

Phoenix mounted a mini-comeback to get as close as 12 after trailing by as many as 24, but the outcome was never seriously in doubt despite a relatively quiet 18-point night from Dirk Nowitzki. The Suns just didn’t have the firepower to make this a game once Nash departed.

And 1

The Suns lost the rebounding battle by just three and for once a pair of players put up gaudy board totals, with Channing Frye and Hakim Warrick both going for season highs of 14. Warrick grabbed double-digit boards for the second time all season and the first since October, and Frye did it for just the third time all year. Frye is now averaging a respectable 8.0 boards per game in December. … Josh Childress did not play even in garbage time, which was long enough in this one for Earl Clark to jack up 12 shots, so perhaps the Suns are heeding my advice by resting him. … The Suns’ next three opponents plus the Mavericks entered the day with a combined record of 78-24, good for a .765 win percentage. … Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that (surprise, surprise!) the Suns are shopping Turkoglu, and have talked to the Magic about him. … Nash ranked fourth among West guards after the first round of All-Star voting with 190,226 votes. He trails Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and Manu Ginobili.

There aren’t many NBA teams that can get outrebounded 49-32, allow 68 points in the paint, surrender 20 offensive rebounds and come away victorious. But then again, there also aren’t many teams that can shoot the three ball like the Phoenix Suns.

The Suns overcame their defensive and rebounding ineptitude by drilling the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers with a franchise-best 22 three-pointers (one short of the NBA single-game record) en route to a 121-116 win in Staples Center Sunday night.

“We put guys in the gym by themselves. It’s tough to shoot that percentage from three,” Kobe Bryant told Suns.com. “They made some tough, contested (three-pointers) and just shot the lights out. It was almost a historical NBA three-point shooting performance.”

Pau Gasol dominated the paint with 28 points and 17 boards, Bryant was one rebound away from a triple-double with a 25-9-14 stat-line, and Lamar Odom shredded the Suns’ defense for 22 points and 11 boards.

But none of that was enough to slow down the Suns’ three-point onslaught, as Phoenix lit up the Lakers from distance early and often, combatting LA’s size and strength the only way humanly possible.

“We can’t walk it up the floor against their length,” Steve Nash told The Associated Press. “You see Pau against us, it looks like he’s playing with a nerf hoop on the back of someone’s bedroom door. So we had to make them play in transition, spread the floor and make it a game of speed and skill rather than size.”

The Suns shot 55 percent from the land of plenty on the night, led by seven from a lights-out Jason Richardson (35 points, eight rebounds), five from Hedo Turkoglu (17 points) and four from Channing Frye (20 points and six boards).

Goran Dragic also knocked down three triples, Nash (21 points and 13 assists) hit two and Jared Dudley drilled one to round out Phoenix’s record-breaking three-point downpour.

“You just feel like the basket is huge and that every shot you throw up is going to go in,” Richardson said. “(Coach) Alvin (Gentry) was calling plays for me and my teammates were finding me. It was just fun to have a night like that.”

Despite the three-point barrage, the Lakers still got within three, down 112-109 with 53 seconds left. But Turkoglu finally lived up to his clutch label, knocking down a 26-footer with 34 seconds remaining to all but ice the game and give the Suns their first regular season win in the Staples Center since Jan. 17, 2008.

But the Suns certainly weren’t in the driver’s seat for all 48 minutes. In fact, it was looking pretty grim for Phoenix early on as the Lakers pounded the Suns on the glass and Gasol picked up a double-double in less than 15 minutes of action.

Robin Lopez left the game with a sprained knee halfway through the second quarter, and the Lakers’ interior attack didn’t look like it was slowing down anytime soon. But the Suns battled back in typical Phoenix Suns fashion — jacking up three after three.

With a sharp-shooting lineup of Nash-Richardson-Grant Hill-Turkoglu-Frye, the Suns chose to live and die by the three. Fortunately for Phoenix, it lived, rattling off a 16-2 run in 1:58 to turn a 46-40 deficit into a 56-48 lead.

Richardson, who was untouchable all night shooting 13-for-20 from the field and scoring 34 of his 35 through three quarters, dropped in two triples during the run and the Suns went into halftime with a 63-56 lead. J-Rich went for 18 in the first half, while Frye accounted for 11 points and four boards.

The Lakers came out of the locker room on a 6-2 run to regain the lead, but the Suns regained their stroke on their way to a 36-point third quarter behind 16 from J-Rich. Richardson was knocking down everything in sight, and the Suns went into the fourth up 92-84.

The Suns scored a ridiculous 69 points in the second and third quarters combined and rode that hot streak into the fourth quarter. J-Rich scored only one point in the final period, but the Suns didn’t even need it, as Nash scored 12 in the quarter and Frye limited Gasol to only four fourth-quarter points, including a crucial block as the Lakers trailed by five with 2:13 left.

While J-Rich did most of the damage in the scoring department, Frye had one of his best all-around games as a Sun, knocking down shots, defending Gasol when it mattered most and stepping in as the Suns’ only so-called “center” with Lopez out.

It is concerning it took 22 triples to beat LA, and the way the Lakers abused the Suns down low is certainly something to worry about. But the fact that the Suns beat the Lakers with no prototypical big man says a lot about the character and cohesion of this team. They played to their strengths — up-tempo, with no conscience — and it worked against the gigantic Lakers.

“That’s what we do, it really is, we usually don’t shoot 40 of them. I think when we get in the open court, with the way we have to try to play right now, we have Hedo who can shoot them and Channing who’s a three-point shooter,” Gentry said. “And we try to take their guys away from the basket. Steve does a great job of penetrating and pitching, and when we’re shooting the ball well from three we’re pretty good.”

The Suns probably won’t drill 22 three-pointers again for the rest of the season. But wins like this bring teams together, which couldn’t come at a better time for a squad searching for continuity. If the Suns hit their stride, feed off chemistry and rise to the occasion in their next three games against Denver, Miami and Orlando, this is the game to look at as the reason why.

And 1

Dudley fell into Lopez’s right knee with 6:04 left in the second quarter. Lopez limped off on his own power and returned back to the bench after a short stint in the locker room. The Suns called it a sprain, but it doesn’t look all that serious for the third-year center. … Richardson is playing as well as any two-guard in the NBA through nine games, averaging 22.3 points per game while shooting 50.8 percent from three and splashing more triples than any other player in the league. … Turkoglu’s performance was very encouraging, as he played big minutes down the stretch for seemingly the first time all season hit a clutch three along the way. He continued to live on the three but also finished a nice driving layup during the Suns’ 16-2 run. … The Suns weren’t great defensively, but they did force 18 Lakers turnovers and played at an up-tempo pace that’s been missing at times this season.

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.

But reading through some local LA articles makes me think this series is something other than all tied up. The LA Times’ Bill Plaschke still doesn’t think the Suns can win it (shocking) and ESPN Los Angeles’ Arash Markazi wrote, “The Suns might not be the best sparring partners, but at least they’re making the Lakers sweat now.”

A couple days from now the Lakers might be doing more than sweating.

I understand the Lakers have underwhelmed in getting to 2-2 the past few years against Houston, Denver and Oklahoma City before taking over, but this Suns team isn’t Houston, Denver or Oklahoma City. I don’t exactly think the Suns should be favored to win the series at this point, but anyone who thinks the Suns are just a speed bump on the Lakers’ run to the Finals should go back and re-watch the past two games.

Well, unless you listen to the homers on my site (I mean that with love!), because as of this writing 92 percent of my 357 voters think the Suns are going to the Finals. Does that just mean all the Lakers commenters have gone away for the time being?

I think we’ve got a dogfight on our hands. I see Game 5 as being the pivotal contest. If the Suns win that, I think they close it out in six. If they drop it, it would be hard to see them winning Game 7 in Los Angeles.

The Suns have all the momentum right now and they have the Lakers on their heels a bit. Here are five keys to the Phoenix Suns finishing off the Lakers and advancing to the NBA Finals:

1.  The will of Nash and the Suns’ vets vs. Kobe

Steve Nash, running toward his first NBA Finals, has never been closer to that destination. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Steve Nash has never been closer to the NBA Finals. He was two wins shy of reaching the promised land with the Mavs against the Spurs in 2003, and he was the same two wins short with the Suns against the Mavs in 2006.

As the NBA player to have competed in the most playoff games without playing in the Finals, Nash knows how rare these opportunities are, and he knows that this may be the last time he’s this close in his illustrious career.

Nash’s legacy is truly on the line. He’s already likely a Hall of Famer. However, when people talk about Nash’s two MVPs and his revolutionary style there’s always the big BUT he’s never even been to the Finals. This is his chance to change how he will be remembered forever, as if he can knock off the defending champion Lakers as the leader of these underdog Suns he probably raises a level in Bill Simmons’ Hall-of-Fame pyramid.

Then there’s Grant Hill, another vet who had never even won a playoff series until now. He’s known for being one of the first “next Jordans” in the mid-90s before injuries robbed him of a Hall of Fame career. Aside from the “what if?” factor from Hill’s injuries, a championship is the one thing missing from his resume.

Then there’s Amare Stoudemire, who is hungry for a payday this offseason. That shouldn’t insinuate that his second-half tear is a money grab and he doesn’t care about winning because he certainly does and has been as unselfish as you could ever expect him to be. But it’s pretty obvious that his value will continue to blow up if he plays in the Finals.

On the other side there is the greatest killer in the game today, the one and only Kobe Bryant.

But Kobe can’t do it himself. Nobody else seemed to want to step up in Phoenix, and the Lakers lost two fabulous Kobe performances in the Valley.

Kobe is always scary, but I could see Nash having a Hall-of-Fame-level killer game now that he can smell the Finals.

2.  The Gasol-Odom combination

I’ve been saying it all series: the Gasol-Odom combination kills the Suns.

Through three games, this combination beat the Suns by 30 in 86 minutes, including a +35 in 30 minutes with Channing Frye on the floor. In Game 4 even when Frye found his jump shot, the Suns still lost seven points when he played against Gasol-Odom, and this duo was actually +3 against the Suns’ bench in Game 4 despite the overall effectiveness of the Suns’ reserves.

Lopez has been most effective big against this unit, so he really needs to get more time against them after logging just 13 minutes in Game 4, especially considering the fact that he was the difference in Game 3.

Whether the Suns can do a capable job neutralizing the Gasol-Odom combination will go a long way toward determining the series.

3.  The benches

If the Gasol-Odom combination was solid even against the Suns’ bench in Game 4 then you know Andrew Bynum certainly wasn’t.

Wayne Winston wrote in an e-mail that the Bynum-Odom lineup lost 18 points in just under 12 minutes against the Suns’ reserves alone in Game 4. As Mike Schmitz wrote today, I’m sure the quickness of Dragic and Barbosa on pick and rolls against Bynum had a lot to do with this absolute thrashing.

The Lakers’ starters beat the Suns’ first unit, but this lineup more than made up the difference, and for the series the Suns’ bench mob is +30 in 20 minutes against Bynum-Odom. The Suns sure must hope the Lakers continue to play Bynum-Odom at the start of second and fourth quarters.

It took three games, but the Suns’ bench finally got it going, and this team as a whole (and the bench in particular) now seems to have its swagger back after playing a bit tentatively during the first go around in LA. Now the question is if the Phoenix reserves can keep that up in Los Angeles and if the Lakers’ bench will play better in the friendly confines of Staples Center after going MIA in Phoenix.

4.  The zone

After Game 4, I wrote that the Suns’ zone has turned around the series. Although the Lakers have still scored bursts of points against the zone, it has forced them onto the perimeter and created the kind of fast, three-point shooting game the Suns prefer to play.

It has also slowed the Lakers down from the manic pace at which they were putting up points in Games 1 and 2.

Now the question is if the zone can carry the Suns to two more wins. Even the Suns themselves seem surprised it has worked as much as it has, but many pundits seem to think the bottom will fall out eventually.

I think the Suns may have to mix things up, but the zone has proven to be a weapon. I really like how the Suns attack out of the zone. They just seem to be more aggressive out of it, the second unit in particular.

The Suns are scoring better than they have all season in this series. If the zone can bring the Lakers back to a reasonable level as it did in Games 3 and 4 then the Suns have a shot.

5.  Three-point shooting

Before Game 4 I was talking to somebody about how the Suns always have one game where they just shoot the lights out from three and the other team just doesn’t have a chance.

I thought we were headed to that contest in Game 4 when the Suns drilled 8-of-16 threes in the second quarter alone, but the rest of the game combined they were just 3-of-14 (21.4 percent) to finish at 36.7 percent. Only in Game 2 when they knocked down 41.7 percent of their long balls did the Suns even resemble the second-best three-point shooting team in NBA history (they shot 41.2 percent on the season, best in the league by a country mile).

For the series the Suns have nailed just 31-of-96 from deep (32.3 percent), which not coincidentally is ticks off the 32.8 percentage the Lakers yielded during the regular season.

The question now is if the Suns can break through from deep for more than a quarter.

Going back to my conversation from the beginning of this section, my friend said he would rather the Suns shoot the lights out in one of the games in Los Angeles than in Game 4, when I predicted it would happen (I guess I was a quarter right).

If the Suns enjoy one of their vintage games from distance in downtown Los Angeles this week, well, the Suns will sure be a lot more than a sparring partner.

Leandro Barbosa's new sign is more than just a three-point celebration, it's a tribute to his late mother. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images).

PHOENIX — Long gone are the days of former Phoenix Suns three-point specialist Quentin Richardson pounding his headband with two fists and flashing three fingers to the crowd after knocking down a triple.

But during Tuesday night’s Game 4 victory Leandro Barbosa reintroduced the three-point celebration to Planet Orange — only when LB crosses his forearms in the shape of an X and holds up three fingers on each hand it symbolizes so much more than just three points.

“It’s a bird, a bird, a white bird,” Barbosa explained after Wednesday’s practice. “That means my mom is still around. So I was doing it for her.”

Barbosa’s mother Ivete passed away in his hometown of Sao Paolo, Brazil, on November 13, 2008, after a six-week bout with pneumonia. She was the closest person in his life and LB struggled mightily with the loss, as the two reportedly talked more than six times a day, and he also lost his father to cancer in 2005.

It’s been about a year and a half since her passing and Tuesday was the first time that Barbosa has implemented anything like this into his game since he lost her. He said Wednesday that he’d been thinking about her and the idea for the white bird came to him in his sleep.

“It came up on my mind,” he said. “I had a dream about that and for some reason I started to do it (Tuesday night).”

Whether it was because of the white bird or not, Barbosa scored 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting from the field and 2-for-4 marksmanship from three on Tuesday night — his highest scoring output of the playoffs and his highest total overall since April 3.

So when you see the white bird fly through the friendly confines of US Airways Center during the remainder of the playoffs, know that it isn’t just a celebration of Barbosa’s three-pointer, but rather a reminder that his late mother Ivete is still with him in spirit.

PHOENIX — Despite facing an 0-2 deficit, the Phoenix Suns haven’t been all that bad offensively against the Los Angeles Lakers through two games of the Western Conference Finals  – with the exception of Channing Frye that is.

After watching the three-point specialist struggle through 1-of-13 shooting thus far, it’s hard to believe that he is the same player that drilled 172 treys during the regular season. The Lakers have done an excellent job chasing Frye from the three-point line and keeping him from becoming the X-factor that he has the potential to be.

He looks nothing like the player who showed off his confident stroke during the regular season, as he often appears to be thinking out on the basketball court rather than just playing. And that lack of confidence has certainly showed in his game.

After Friday’s practice Frye said, “I saw the film and there’s no confidence problems, there’s no mental problems, there’s no nothing. You just had two bad games.”

With a positive attitude looking forward to Sunday’s game, it’s easy to say that it isn’t mental. But when you’re so used to getting open look after open look and knocking it down with regularity, if that completely changes it has to affect your psyche. Frye did admit that he hasn’t been himself lately on the court, often worrying about the importance of each three he has hoisted rather than just shooting.

“I was trying to be something I wasn’t and that was being serious, you know, ‘Oh gosh, I’ve got to make this shot,’ instead of just letting it fly like I usually do,” Frye said.

He said that after watching the film, his shot looked good. But it was clear that he was hesitant to fire in Game 2, which resulted in 0-of-5 shooting and a season-low nine minutes. Even the shots that he did take he would show a brief pump fake before or wait an extra second prior to firing.

“Sometimes the ball just doesn’t feel right in my hands,” he said. “Sometimes the ball just doesn’t come clean in your hands and other times with their length I’m trying to read the defense and what they’re giving up and through that process it’s just something that I had to look and figure out.”

Frye has essentially hurt the Suns more than helped them through two games. The only value he really brings to the court is his shooting, and when that’s ineffective it’s hard to find a reason to put him on the court. But despite his recent struggles, head coach Alvin Gentry still has confidence in Frye’s shooting ability — as long as he believes in himself that is.

“If he has an open shot then he’s got to step in and shoot it,” Gentry said. “I could care less. If he shoots it and he thinks its going in than that’s all I want to have happen. Other than that, that’s the only adjustment that needs to be made.”

Sounds like a confidence issue to me. But if there is one place where Frye can regain that confidence it is in the friendly confines of US Airways Center, where he shot 47.3 percent from three during the regular season, as opposed to 40.2 percent on the road during the regular season.

The support of Planet Orange should only help the slumping shooter, but Frye was adamant that the added pressure of playing on a bigger stage in Los Angeles of all places had no impact on his game.

“Oh I don’t care about no bright lights man, you’re talking to the wrong person,” Frye said adamantly. “I don’t care about none of that. All that bright lights crap is nothing.”

Frye and the entire Suns team knows that he has been flat-out awful through two games. But the 6-foot-11 sharpshooter sounded confident after today’s practice and seemed like he knew exactly what he needed to do on the court to potentially change the complexion of the series for the Suns — relax.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself because I feel like I’m a big part of this team,” he said. “Instead of trying to win every game on every single shot, I just need to come out here and play.”

Kobe destroyed the Suns from all angles in Game 1. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Entering the series, I was most concerned about how the Suns were going to match up against the Lakers’ length inside.

While Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol certainly made their presence felt, an old foe was largely responsible for torching the Suns in Game 1: Kobe Bryant.

As John Hollinger predicted, Kobe was the man who couldn’t be stopped, showing no effects of getting fluid drained from his knee earlier this week by exploding for a 40 spot on 13-for-23 shooting to lead the Lakers to a 128-107 victory in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.

Kobe — who has now scored 30 in six straight after putting up a 2010 playoff high — had it all working, particularly his jumper. After hitting just 30-of-80 jumpers (37.5 percent) in the first two rounds, Kobe nailed 8-of-14 shots from 16-plus feet, including 4-of-6 in the decisive third quarter when he exploded for 21 points, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

Kobe had the focused, “F you” look in his eyes much of the night, saying with his body language that there’s no way in hell the Suns were going to win this game. As porous as the Suns’ defense was in general, even when Bryant was well-defended he seemed to knock down the kind of tough shot that only he can make.

I don’t know if the prior postseason losses to the Suns are really driving him that much or if it’s just that fifth ring, but for whatever reason he was a killer tonight.

“[Kobe] is the best player in the game and he’s gonna get points,” Suns forward Grant Hill told reporters. “I don’t know exactly what we did wrong or right tonight. We just have to look at the tape tomorrow and talk about making some adjustments.”

But it wasn’t just Kobe, as the Lakers as a whole put on an offensive clinic, scoring 134.7 points per 100 possessions on Phoenix’s defense, according to StatSheet.com. For a means of comparison, the Suns yielded 106.9 pp100 during the regular season.

The Suns’ defensive effort looked as bad as that stat would indicate. In fact, I could have sworn I was watching a Mike D’Antoni defensive team.

After the game, Gentry pinned the Lakers’ efficiency on middle drives by perimeter players more than any damage done by Los Angeles’ big guys. Interior penetration was a major issue for the Suns during their 12-18 stretch in the middle of the year, something that Gentry harped on quite often during that part of the year and something that’s been much better of late for the Suns.

Gasol (21 points, 10-for-13) still got his and the Suns really never found an answer for Odom (19, 9-for-15), who picked up right where he left off from his successful 2005-06 and 2006-07 postseasons against Phoenix.

However, the Lakers got very little from Andrew Bynum, who scored four points and collected four rebounds in 19 minutes of action but barely made a dent on the game. You could say Los Angeles didn’t really need Bynum on this night with Odom playing so well, and that is true, but the Lakers almost don’t have a bench if you start counting Lamar as a starter.

The Lakers’ other stars played so well that it didn’t matter that Bynum was a no show, but his potential ineffectiveness is a major development to watch as the series continues, especially considering he said his knee got worse from a week of rest.

On the flip side, Robin Lopez came in and played better than we could have expected, scoring 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting and grabbing a team-high-tying six boards in 24 minutes of action (yes, it’s sad that that was a team high). Lopez was the only Sun to record a positive plus-minus.

Offensively, we got to see what a difference he makes in comparison to Jarron Collins. Collins, bless his heart, is essentially useless when he catches the ball. Lopez is an agile big man who can take a Nash pass on a pick-and-roll and throw one home, as he did a couple times in this game. Lopez even dusted off his mid-range jumper.

Defensively and on the boards he’s one more athletic, big body to throw at the Lakers’ trees and best of all he told ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz that he “was surprised at how good I felt out there.”

Lopez’s comeback was the biggest bright spot on this night, and if Lopez wins his matchup with Bynum this series then the complexion of the series changes.

Offensively the Suns were not terrible. They scored 112.6 points per 100 possessions, which is right at their season average, and they knocked down 49.4 percent of their field goals. Those numbers would likely be good enough to win a lot of games when the defense isn’t so soft.

The Suns were really hurt by the fact that they couldn’t hit threes and they couldn’t get out in transition. Phoenix knocked down just 5-of-22 long balls (22.7 percent), three fewer than Los Angeles in five more attempts.

Channing Frye in particular just couldn’t get it going, missing six of seven. I think Channing needs to just keep shooting. Non-Suns fans were freaking out about Frye on the Daily Dime Live chat, but we’ve seen this all year. He’s had a lot of bad games like this, but the Suns tell him to just keep shooting or else it disrupts the rest of the offense.

Oftentimes when Channing misses a few, the next couple shots don’t look as crisp as a normal Channing Frye jump shot. But we’re talking about a guy who went 2-for-15 from deep in Games 2-4 against Portland and then scorched the nets with 3-for-5 shooting in Game 5 and 5-for-6 shooting in Game 2 against San Antonio, a contest he practically won for Phoenix.

The Suns also couldn’t get into transition, failing to make a single transition bucket (0-for-5), according to ESPN Stats & Information, although they did knock down seven foul shots off transition trips.

In all, the Suns weren’t the team that’s steamrolled the league at a 36-9 clip since the end of January. They played a lot of one-on-one defense and were beaten badly (particularly by Kobe), they couldn’t hit threes and they couldn’t get out and run. The Suns just weren’t the Suns.

Now, I understand a lot of this has to do with the opponent, but after jumping out to a 7-0 lead the Suns really didn’t play with that same characteristic spirit the rest of the way.

“It is just one of those games,” Richardson said. “We didn’t really do everything we were supposed to do, but I can’t take a win away from them [Lakers]. They came in and played a great game.”

That they did, and now we get to the statistical significance of this victory. As we all know, a Phil Jackson-led team has never lost a series after winning Game 1. So the Suns should just pack up and call it a season now, right?

Wrong.

As ESPN.com’s Royce Webb mentioned in tonight’s Daily Dime Live chat, before the 2006 Suns-Lakers series, a Jackson-led squad had never lost in the first round (14-0) or in a series in which it had led (44-0).

Although those marks underscore how great of a coach Jackson has been, the stars of this very Suns team dug themselves out of a more insurmountable hole to break a different lengthy Jackson playoff streak only a few short years ago.

In all the Suns should be encouraged by Robin Lopez and the fact that they likely won’t shoot the three ball that poorly again, even against the Lakers’ stingy three-point defense.

So while Game 1 was a certifiable disaster, Lakers fans should not starting thinking about if they’d rather play Orlando or Boston in the Finals just yet.

And 1

• It was pretty interesting watching the Suns depart for Los Angeles after practice on Sunday. Airport security officials check them onto the bus so the team doesn’t have to wait in line at the airport like everyone else. Never thought I’d see Steve Nash patted down in the bowels of US Airways Center, but not even the Suns are above airport security.
• So ends the Chipotle charm. Yes, I chowed down on steak tacos tonight, but for the first time in five weekday road games it did not lead to a Suns victory. I suppose I need to switch it up and go with the burrito before Game 2?

Kobe Bryant went off on the Suns tonight, but no one changed the game more than Lamar Odom. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

There’s no question that Kobe Bryant kept the Phoenix Suns teetering backward and finally delivered the knockout punch with 26 second-half points (40 total) in tonight’s Western Conference Finals series opener.

But although Kobe had a special night offensively, no Los Angeles Laker changed the complexion of the game more than Lamar Odom.

The Suns looked crisp and energetic in the early going as they jumped out to a 20-15 lead behind two Jason Richardson three-pointers.

Andrew Bynum struggled to defend the pick-and-roll, Amare Stoudemire was knocking down jumpers, J-Rich was on the board early and the Suns were getting open looks from three.

But when Odom stepped foot on the hardwood with 5:31 left in the first quarter all of the Suns’ optimism was squandered.

The do-it-all 6-foot-10, 230-pound forward brought a different energy to Staples Center as he gave LA its first lead of the game by rattling off seven of the Lakers’ next nine points during a two-minute span. Odom carried the Lakers on a 19-6 run to close out the quarter and the Suns never led again.

After Saturday’s practice Suns head coach and Odom’s former coach with the Clippers called the versatile big man “the most effective player from a multi-position standpoint that there is in the league.”

Amare Stoudemire, who grabbed only three boards tonight, also said, “Odom is a big factor for them. He comes in and provides energy on the boards.”

Odom certainly showed why he is such a big factor tonight, with 19 points and 19 boards. But the stats alone don’t tell the whole story, as his athleticism and energy neutralized all of the advantages that the Suns had going into the series.

Channing Frye figured to be a big factor in pulling away the Lakers bigs from the hoop with his shooting. But Phil Jackson stuck Odom on Frye, and it paid dividends as his quick closeouts forced Channing into arguably his worst game of the season — three points, one rebound on 1-of-8 from the field and 1-of-7 from three in 20 minutes.

And it’s not like Frye was the recipient of a few bad bounces, he wasn’t even close and looked like he had no business shooting the ball. His confidence and rhythm were clearly rattled because of Odom’s versatility and athleticism.

But not only did he completely eliminate Frye, Odom also took away the Suns’ main source of offense — the pick-and-roll.

Derek Fisher did a great job fighting through screens and Pau Gasol was also fairly effective defending the play, but it was Odom’s ability to show and retreat, or even stay with Nash if he switched, that took the Suns completely out of rhythm offensively.

The Suns get almost all of their three-point attempts and layups out of the pick-and-roll, and without three-pointers and layups any team becomes significantly worse. While 5-of-22 from distance is flat-out awful, the Suns were even worse after Odom entered the game, as they shot 3-of-18 from the 5:35 mark in the first quarter on.

It wasn’t only his defense on Frye and his ability to defend the pick-and-roll that led to his game-high +24, however.

Odom seemed to grab every loose ball available (seven offensive rebounds) while forcing Amare Stoudemire to come out and defend on the perimeter. There were two occasions in the game when Odom received the ball down low and was blocked twice before ultimately grabbing a third rebound in one play and finishing strong.

He also embarrassed STAT on numerous occasions with his quickness. He blew by Amare from the top of the key on a drive that looked like it was in slow motion. Needless to say, the do-it-all forward lived up to the name and did it all tonight.

He took away Frye’s ability to spread the floor and shoot the three, he took away the pick-and-roll, he controlled the battle of the boards and he made Amare play defense. So what other Suns advantages were there to keep in check?

Odom single-handedly neutralized the Phoenix bench. Goran Dragic, Jared Dudley and the Suns bench had a clear advantage in the second-unit department heading into tonight’s game. But Odom’s effectiveness with the Lakers’ second unit turned the battle of the benches from advantage Suns to a virtual wash.

All season long people around the Lakers organization have dubbed Odom the X-factor for this team, and tonight he showed why. When he shows up to play like this he has the ability to swing so many facets of the game into the Lakers’ favor.

He was the main reason for the Lakers’ eight-rebound disparity on the glass (no Sun snared more than six boards), and his 17 points in the paint, along with Gasol’s 10-of-13 shooting, also allowed LA to establish its dominance down low.

So while Kobe Bryant did his thing and exploded for 40 tonight, it was Odom who deserves the true game ball for his game-changing versatility, rebounding and defense.