Chapter 513: Flying Man
Dallas came right back, and Nowitzki answered with another fading jumper.
17 to 15.
That was the nature of elite scorers. Once they found their touch, there was no real way to stop them.
D Antoni immediately called a timeout, partly to cool off Nowitzki's momentum, and partly to get Nash back on the floor.
Barea had played well in those 2 minutes, but Nash's role was still irreplaceable.
When Nash checked back in, the home crowd applauded.
Play resumed.
Nash showed no sign of being affected by the earlier collision. His handle was still sharp, and his mind was as clear as ever. After using a screen, he drew a double team and instantly moved the ball to Chen Yan on the perimeter.
The Mavericks rotated fast. They were not just trapping the ball handler, they were trapping the receiver too.
Chen Yan caught it and, without pausing, swung it to the corner. His court vision was wide open.
No matter how quickly Dallas rotated, a defense that committed to hard doubles would always leave a gap somewhere.
Nowitzki had to close out, and Grant Hill in the corner took the 3 before Dirk could fully recover.
Clang.
It was a clean look, but it did not fall.
Kidd barely left the floor and still came down with yet another rebound.
Nobody could quite explain how a man defending on the perimeter one second could appear in the paint for the rebound the next. As the gold standard for rebounding guards, Kidd had always possessed that kind of magic.
Chen Yan now had a similar gift, but he could not crash the glass as recklessly as Kidd. Most of the time, Chen had to be the first Sun across half court to threaten the break.
Nowitzki stepped up to screen for Kidd, then quickly slipped out after the contact.
Nash slid in front of Dirk's roll, and Diaw immediately shaded over toward him.
Phoenix's defensive plan was clear. They could live with the ball handler taking a perimeter shot off the screen, but they could not let Dirk roll free or settle into that foul line jumper. Not tonight, not with his hand already heating up.
Kidd saw the space above the arc and took it decisively.
The shot was ugly, banking high off the glass and missing badly.
Kidd was that kind of shooter. Sometimes it went in cleanly. Sometimes it looked like he was launching a brick.
Stoudemire grabbed the rebound and softly handed it to Nash. Nash turned and pushed.
At the top of the arc on the left side, he suddenly raised the ball and fired a long pass.
Chen Yan read it instantly and took off.
Boom!
He caught it in midair and finished with a reverse dunk.
The Chen Yan Nash connection struck again, and the Suns ran one of their classic fast breaks to perfection.
The whole arena exploded. It felt like someone had poured oil into a pan already blazing hot.
"What just happened? How did that dunk even happen? The Mavericks didn't react at all!" Kenny Smith shouted.
"Forget the Mavericks, even the camera almost didn't react," Barkley said with a laugh.
"Nash's imagination is still ridiculous, and Chen's movement is impossible to describe. I do not even know how he got to the front court in one blink and then got airborne in the next," Kenny added.
Barkley threw his head back and laughed.
"Timeout!"
This time it was Carlisle who stopped the game.
He brought Jason Terry in for Kidd, adding even more offensive punch.
Terry averaged 19.6 points a game that season, second on the team. He was not just a sixth man in name. He was one of Dallas's primary weapons, and in some stretches his scoring threat trailed only Nowitzki.
The moment Terry checked in, Phoenix abandoned the 2 1 2 zone. Terry was not Kidd. If they gave him that kind of room above the arc, he would punish them over and over.
After the timeout, Dallas kept leaning into its plan. The Mavericks continued trapping Nash and Chen Yan hard. The difference was in the timing. Nash was getting trapped after the screen, while Chen Yan was seeing the extra defender almost the instant the ball touched his hands.
Stoudemire, meanwhile, was being ignored by comparison. He was the only member of Phoenix's big three not getting the full double team treatment. Before the game, Dallas's staff had decided that Stoudemire was still far from his best form, so the priority had to be Chen Yan and Nash.
So far, that read looked correct.
Stoudemire missed every jumper he took in the first quarter and scored only 4 points, mostly from drives and free throws.
A lot of fans wondered how an eye injury could throw off a player so badly. His hands and legs were still fine, so why did his game look so different?
But basketball never worked that simply. Any injury could throw off a player's rhythm, and on top of that, Stoudemire had been out for months and was returning directly into playoff intensity. It was only natural that he looked tight.
Over the final minutes of the first quarter, Dallas began shifting its offense outward and firing from deep in volume.
With this lineup, the Mavericks' perimeter firepower was every bit as dangerous as Phoenix's. They had the weapons to trade 3s with anybody.
And Phoenix did not mind that style one bit.
The Suns loved opponents who squared up and ran with them.
Phoenix feared grind it out games far more than shootouts. If a team wanted to play fast and loose, the Suns were happy to oblige.
Both sides attacked in waves, and the scoreboard reflected it. By the end of the first quarter, Phoenix led 33 to 29.
"Chen Yan had it going in the first quarter with 14 points, the most on either side. Nowitzki has 11, and his touch is also very good right now," Barkley said during the break.
"Both teams really opened up offensively in the second half of that quarter. The pace was high, and that is exactly what the fans wanted to see," Kenny said with a smile.
He was speaking from the fans' perspective. More often than not, they cared just as much about entertainment as they did about the result.
Both teams went deep into their benches to start the second quarter.
Phoenix put out Barea, Raja Bell, Azubuike, Barnes, and Jordan.
Dallas answered with Terry, Matt Carroll, Gerald Green, Antoine Wright, and Dampier.
The self proclaimed second best center in the universe finally checked in. Dampier had been a regular starter for Dallas, but against Phoenix he was a poor fit, much like Okur had been against the Suns in the previous round.
On the very first possession, Terry came off a double screen and buried a high post jumper.
He was the offensive engine of that Mavericks unit. Everything flowed through him, and Carlisle trusted him completely.
Phoenix's second unit looked a little wild. Every time Barea got the ball, he charged into the paint as if that alone could solve the possession. His ability to draw fouls was real, but once a defense read the pattern, it became easier to contain. Azubuike was not much better in that stretch, driving into traffic with no real plan.
It was not just Barea. Azubuike also had something personal in mind. He believed Terry had taken the Sixth Man award that should have been his, and he wanted to answer that head to head. That kind of pride was perfectly normal for a professional player.
But all that reckless aggression did not produce much. Instead, Dallas kept turning those broken possessions into transition chances.
A little more than 3 minutes into the second quarter, the Mavericks had already flipped the score and taken the lead.
D Antoni had no choice but to call timeout.
The script had drifted away from him, and he had to get his main lineup back in sooner than planned.
.....
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