Steve Nash: Top 10 Moments With The Phoenix Suns
6. Three Conference Finals Appearances
As far as championships are concerned, Nash never climbed to the peak of the NBA mountain. But that’s not to say he never had any notable playoff success either, especially when you remember he made it to four Western Conference Finals (three with the Suns) in his career.
Karl Malone and Steve Nash may be the only players in NBA history to ever win multiple MVPs without ever winning a title, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on Nash’s part. If anything, it might be for a lack of luck.
In his first season with the Suns, Nash and company disappointingly bowed out in the Western Conference Finals in five games against the Spurs, but they were missing Joe Johnson for the first two games of the series. Johnson had to have surgery to repair a left orbital bone fracture in his face, an injury he sustained against the Mavs in Nash’s revenge series.
The second-seeded Spurs won the first two games of the series without Johnson, stealing home court advantage and wrapping up the series in five. The next season, the Suns lost in six games to the Mavericks, but they were missing Amar’e Stoudemire and an important defender and three-point sniper in Raja Bell for two games of the series.
In the 2007 NBA Playoffs, the Suns lost in the semis to the eventual champs, this time by virtue of the despicable Robert Horry hip check and subsequent controversial suspensions we already covered.
In 2010, Nash and quite possibly his deepest team faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals and were one missed Jason Richardson box-out from taking a 3-2 series series lead with Game 6 in Phoenix. Unfortunately, Ron Artest grabbed a Kobe Bryant air ball, laid it in at the buzzer and the Lakers went on to win in six games en route to another title.
So at final tally, that’s three notable injuries, two BS suspensions and one unbelievably lucky game-winner that theoretically prevented Nash from ever reaching the NBA Finals. In three of Nash’s six peak seasons, the Suns were defeated by the eventual champs late in the playoffs.
That’s just the bad luck of playing in the West, or in the NBA in general, for that matter. It takes a little luck to win a title, and Nash’s Suns had very little when the postseason rolled around. Still, three Western Conference Finals appearances, 120 playoff games (78th all-time) and 4,289 playoff minutes (55th all-time) is nothing to scoff at.
Next: No. 5