Chapter 516: The Fundamentals of Winning
Dallas went back on offense.
Dirk caught the ball on the right side again. This time, the Mavericks did not clear out for him. Carlisle stayed with the same idea from the first half, using Nowitzki to draw double teams and create chances for everyone else.
A lot of people could not understand Carlisle's thinking. From the outside, it looked simple. Dirk had been red hot in the last game, so why not just keep feeding him and let him shoot?
But basketball is much more complicated than fans like to imagine. A coach has to weigh home court and road conditions, player stamina, the opponent's counters, and the long rhythm of a series. Viewed as a war of attrition, limiting the physical drain from constant Nowitzki isolations was a perfectly rational choice.
Stoudemire came over quickly from the baseline to trap Dirk, while Azubuike rotated into the paint to cover the gap, leaving Artest alone on the weak side.
The beauty of that trap was in the next rotation. Once the ball left Dirk's hands, Phoenix could recover in sequence. And since Nowitzki was not a naturally gifted crosscourt passer, forcing him to throw long skip passes always carried some danger.
Even so, Dirk still delivered the ball to the open man.
Artest caught it in the corner, gathered, and adjusted. Azubuike reacted instantly and flew back out from the paint.
The shot hit the rim and bounced away. Artest was annoyed. He had not expected Azubuike to recover that fast. If he had gone straight up without hesitating, the result might have been different.
Jordan grabbed the defensive rebound with ease. None of the Mavericks crashed the glass. With that lineup, they had already given up on offensive rebounds.
Phoenix flowed into the half court and ran its classic Nash and Stoudemire pick and roll.
Nash used the screen, took a step, kicked it back, and Stoudemire drilled the mid range jumper.
His confidence was clearly coming back. The work his teammates had put into lifting him in the last game was finally paying off.
Dallas answered with a pick and roll of its own.
For all the endless variations in basketball, the most efficient and most fundamental action is still the pick and roll.
But this time the Suns snuffed it out with quick, aggressive switching. After the Mavericks failed to generate anything from the initial action, they swung the ball to Ray Allen.
With the clock winding down, Ray had to launch a contested 3. It missed badly, clanging off the front rim.
Phoenix was off again.
Stoudemire sprinted inside the arc, while Chen Yan drifted wide to the opposite forty five degree angle behind the 3 point line.
Everyone in the arena waited to see what kind of pass Nash was about to throw.
Instead, Nash suddenly stopped outside the arc.
His average 3 point percentage hovering around 45 percent had never come from passing the ball.
Kidd had already retreated a step inside the line. The moment he saw Nash rise, he reacted instinctively and charged out.
He wanted to bother the shot, but his old legs had other plans. Kidd slipped, slapped both hands onto the floor, and nearly dropped to his knees under Nash shorts.
Swish.
The net snapped.
Kidd walked back up court without looking behind him.
A real man never looks back at the scene of an explosion.
It was a cool image, very cinematic, except the shot had gone in for Nash, not for him.
The deficit had vanished in an instant, and Carlisle had no choice but to call timeout.
After the timeout, Dallas changed its approach again. Carlisle had Ray Allen and Nowitzki run pick and roll together.
The threat of those 2 elite shooters in the same action was undeniable. But neither of them was a top shelf penetrator or playmaker off the bounce, so the action still had limitations.
This time Phoenix switched. Allen found Stoudemire in front of him and gave up the shot, swinging the ball to Nowitzki outside the arc instead.
As he made the pass, Stoudemire got just enough of a hand on it to take some pace off. The ball came in short, forcing Dirk to bend down and step forward just to secure it.
Chen Yan pounced.
His swipe was precise and clean. Nowitzki, bent low in that awkward position, could not protect the ball at all.
Slap.
The ball hit the floor, bounced up, and then caught Dirk square in the groin before Chen Yan gathered it and exploded toward the basket for 2 more points.
Dirk could only sit on the floor holding himself, pretending to recover while his teammates helped him up.
Fans immediately joked that Dirk was not covering his groin, he was covering his dignity.
By the end of the third quarter, Phoenix had stretched the lead to 7.
The Ray Allen and Dirk Nowitzki pick and roll had produced something, but in the end it was still too repetitive and too easy for Phoenix to key in on. Most of the shots it generated were long jumpers from the high post and beyond the arc, which naturally lowered the efficiency.
To begin the fourth, D'Antoni simply doubled down and kept the same unit that had taken control in the third.
Running his starters into the ground was hardwired into D'Antoni DNA. It was not a habit he could suddenly break now.
His logic was straightforward. That lineup had won the stretch, so why not keep riding it into the crucial quarter and lock the game down?
Dallas answered by putting its best offensive group on the floor. Nowitzki, Terry, Ray Allen, and the rest of the scoring pieces were all deployed together.
Since Phoenix was not resting its stars, Carlisle had no intention of resting his either. Sit them now, and the game might be gone for good.
After a few minutes of using Dirk as a decoy, Carlisle saw the truth. That route was not going to save the game. The Suns were switching too quickly, and they had too much size and length at every point of rotation.
After a brief pause, the tactical master made up his mind.
He was giving the ball back to Dirk and letting him take over through direct isolation in the final quarter.
It was almost funny. After all the wrinkles, all the layers, all the disguises, the answer still led back to the same place.
Back to the start, standing in front of the mirror.
That was Carlisle tonight.
Nowitzki remained brutally efficient once he got the ball, but the score would not come down. The rhythm belonged to Phoenix now.
The Suns answered with the familiar principle that had buried so many teams before them.
No matter how many you score, we will score more.
With 3 minutes left, Nowitzki and Ray Allen suddenly caught fire and hit back to back 3s.
The Mavericks trimmed the margin to 4.
Their fans began to believe again.
What they did not know was that it would be Dallas's final breath.
The game entered a white hot stretch. Phoenix's 3 carriages all surged at once and combined for every one of the Suns' last 13 points over the final 3 minutes.
Chen Yan scored 5.
Stoudemire scored 4.
Nash scored 4.
The balance made Dallas impossible to guard. There was no single fire to smother.
In the end, Phoenix closed it out, 107 to 102, and took a 2 to 0 lead in the series.
Dallas had only lost by 5, a much better showing than in Game 1. Yet the expressions on their faces were even more defeated than before.
The difference was simple. In the opener, the fourth quarter had been garbage time. In this one, they had truly believed they could win. They had even led at halftime.
Over the full game, Chen Yan went 10 for 19 from the field, 4 for 6 from deep, and 7 for 8 from the line, finishing with 31 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.
Nash added 23 points and 8 assists. His offensive aggression had been noticeably higher tonight, his jumper was decisive, and his playmaking still bent the game.
Stoudemire finished with 19 points and 9 rebounds. His jumper had taken a visible leap forward, as he knocked down 5 of his 6 mid range attempts.
That was not really shocking. Mid range touch had always been one of Stoudemire's natural strengths. The surprise was not that he could do it, but that he had finally started doing it again.
Tonight, Phoenix's 3 carriages all delivered.
That, more than anything else, was why the Suns won.
.....
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