suns go down (sigh)

Mavericks 102, Suns 93

Mavericks Rule the West at Long Last

The New York Times

By HOWARD BECK

June 4, 2006

PHOENIX, June 3 — Mark Cuban's eyes were red and puffy, his cap askew, his goofy grin seemingly permanent. The locker room was steamy, congested and foreign, and Cuban never looked more comfortable, joyous or at home.

His Dallas Mavericks became Western Conference champions Saturday when they at last snuffed out the supernatural resilience of the Phoenix Suns. A fantastically entertaining, six-game conference finals ended with a 102-93 Dallas victory, with Cuban clutching a shiny metal trophy and choking up as he saluted his coach, Avery Johnson.

Until that moment, Cuban was known mostly as the N.B.A.'s most irreverent, unconventional and mouthy owner. On Saturday night at the US Airways Center, he could claim something more. The team he rooted for, then bought, is going to the N.B.A. finals for the first time in its 26-year history. The Mavericks open the finals against the Miami Heat on Thursday, in Dallas.

"You know, it's not like when my daughter was born, it's not like when I got married, but," Cuban said, pausing, "it's pretty darn close."

The Heat is also making its first trip to the championship round. It is the first matchup of first-time finalists since the Bullets, then based in Baltimore, met Seattle in 1971.

Dallas earned its trip by fighting off the Suns, who stubbornly persevered through injuries and general misfortune all season. The Mavericks showed their own pluckiness Saturday, erasing an 18-point first-half deficit.

Dirk Nowitzki was shaky early but steady when it mattered, scoring 16 of his 24 points in the second half. The Mavericks finished off the Suns with a 40-point fourth quarter, fueled by Jerry Stackhouse's 13 points, Jason Terry's 10 and Josh Howard's 9.

"It's about sticking together when you're down and when you're up," said Nowitzki, who certified himself as a superstar with a 50-point performance in Game 5. "It's been a fun ride. Hopefully, we can take it to the next level and bring this franchise a ring."

Nowitzki's career pinnacle came at the expense of his former teammate and best friend, Steve Nash, the league's two-time most valuable player. The Suns made it this far because of Nash's tireless playmaking, but he and his teammates seemed gassed by the final buzzer.

That would be understandable, given the immense energy it took to get here. The Suns needed seven games to win their first two series. They were already without their star center, Amare Stoudemire, and played much of this series with their best defender, Raja Bell, dragging an injured calf.

"For me personally, to see Dirk be able to play for the championship, it's exciting," said Nash, who finished with 19 points and 9 assists but was quiet for most of the second half.

Nash has played without a true backup and has sustained numerous injuries along the way. The Suns never wanted to admit fatigue, but Nash at last conceded, "I think it would be ignorant to say it wasn't a factor at all."

Bell, who missed two games of this series, said, "A healthy body here or there, let alone two of them, I think we're the favorites to win the championship."

The valley air was thick with tension — and 109-degree heat — at tip-off, but the Suns had thrived on tension and heat for weeks. They had already faced elimination on four occasions in these playoffs and won all four of those games, by an average of 19 points. They seemed ready to stave off elimination once more, and force a third Game 7, when they jumped to a double-digit lead in the first quarter.

The Mavericks played the opening minutes like a team desperate to close out the series. It was evident in all the worst ways. Dallas missed 15 of 21 shots in the first quarter, including 8 in a row. Terry and Devin Harris were on the bench with two fouls each less than 8 minutes after the tipoff.

Nowitzki scored a point in the period and did not make his first field goal until the 9 minute 35 second mark of the second quarter. He reached halftime with 8 points and shot 2 of 9 from the field, and Phoenix led, 51-39.

Momentum began to seep toward the Mavericks in the third quarter. The Suns' Boris Diaw (30 points) and Tim Thomas went to the bench with foul trouble, and Nowitzki started to find his rhythm. Terry hit a couple of shots, the Mavericks knocked the lead down to single digits, and the locals began to get antsy.

Cedric Ceballos, the former N.B.A. swingman turned arena M.C., tried to rally spirits before the fourth quarter began, bellowing into a microphone, "Do you believe?" three times. The crowd roared its answer in the affirmative, but it sounded like wishful thinking.

Dallas scored the first 6 points of the fourth quarter to complete a 12-0 run and take a 68-66 lead, their first since the opening seconds of the game. Then came the big final kick, and the Suns withered behind missed 3-pointers and careless turnovers. Nash's running scoop shot cut the deficit to 90-83 with 1:49 to play, but Howard made a 3-pointer to push the lead back to 10.

After the final buzzer, Cuban found Nash — whom he let leave as a free agent two summers ago — and they hugged.

"He said, 'Best of luck, bring it home,' " Cuban said. "There's a part of me that wishes Steve was here," he added, then listed a number of other former Mavericks players — Michael Finley, Ceballos, Sean Rooks and Erick Strickland — "all these guys that taught me a lot along the way and impacted what this franchise became."

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Nash and Suns got this far on heart

BY SCOTT BORDOW

East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)

Sunday, June 04, 2006

PHOENIX - Steve Nash walked down the hallway toward the Suns' locker room, tears turning his tired eyes red.

He saw his twin daughters, Lola and Bella, and bent down to give them a hug.

A small smile appeared on his face and, for a moment, the heartache was gone.

But just for a moment.

It wasn't supposed to end this way. The Suns had slain so many dragons that you were sure they'd draw their sword one more time.

But their heart, resiliency and toughness ran into a sobering reality:

The better team won.

Dallas 102, Phoenix 93.

A season that seemed as if it would never end did.

"Never once did I ever think about these elimination games being the final game," Raja Bell said. "I felt like we were a team that was going to get it done and we were on the way to do it until a better team stepped up and knocked us out."

What a long, strange and wonderful trip it was.

No one expected the Suns to get this far. Not without Amare Stoudemire. Or, for the second half of the year, Kurt Thomas.

And even though the season ended on a sour note, it was the sweetest, most surprising success story since the 1975-76 Suns - "The Little Team That Could" - reached the NBA Finals.

"It hurts, but at the end of the day we have to hold our heads up high," Shawn Marion said. "The run we went on was amazing, man."

So are the memories.

Nash, using the basketball as if it were a magician's wand, winning his second straight Most Valuable Player award.

Marion, showing off the most versatile game in the NBA, and if the Suns even think about trading him in the offseason, they're nuts.

The emergence of Boris Diaw. (Joe who?)

The development of Leandro Barbosa. Bell's toughness and leadership, and the most unlikely hero of all, Tim Thomas.

They were supposed to wobble through the season and wait until next year. Instead, they gave the Valley nine months of thrills and chills, hoarse voices and water-cooler moments.

"We've got some guys with hearts as big as Phoenix," coach Mike D'Antoni said.

It appeared, for most of Game 6, that the Suns would make one last charge up the hill. They led by 15 points in the third quarter, and another dramatic Game 7 seemed at hand.

Then Phoenix ran out of gas.

Finally.

It took the final 24 minutes of the 102nd game of the season, but the Suns' short bench caught up with them. D'Antoni used just seven players Saturday - Eddie House never left the bench - and when the deeper, more talented Mavericks made their run, Phoenix didn't have a reply.

"Part of me feels that's a weak excuse but part of me feels it (fatigue) was a factor," Nash said. "You just can't tail off every second half the way we did and not expect it to mean something." The Suns will have to address their lack of depth next season if they want to win a championship. Having Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas back will help, but Phoenix also needs to find a reliable backup point guard for Nash.

Nash might be getting better as he gets older, but he's not a wind-up toy. Losing in the Western Conference finals for a second straight season will feed the critics who say the Suns can't win a title racing down the court and tossing up 3s, but it's a flawed argument.

Phoenix didn't come up short this season because of its style; it failed because it wasn't the team it was supposed to be.

Ask yourself this: Is there another team in the NBA that could have come this far without its dominant big man?

"I think if anything we proved to me that we can win a championship playing this way," Nash said. "We were right there and we had a lot of injuries."

Said team chairman Jerry Colangelo: "This team maxed out."

There won't be any such ceiling next year. If Stoudemire is healthy - and there's no reason to believe he won't be - a title will be within the Suns' reach.

"I think we've got something pretty damn good going here," D'Antoni said.

There's no doubt about that.

The disappointment may be great today, but so is the hope for tomorrow. October can't get here soon enough.