Forged By The Heat Of The Suns

I'M GOING TO HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW we did this," said coach Gregg Popovich a few minutes after his Spurs had advanced to the Western Conference finals, and he was being sincere. San Antonio had defeated the winningest team of the tournament's final eight, and Popovich better than anyone understood that the differences between the Suns and the Spurs were far narrower than San Antonio's 4-2 upset indicated. The series fell to the Spurs by a remarkable confluence of strategy, execution and favorable circumstances, beginning with the bloodied nose suffered by Suns guard Steve Nash that sidelined him during the crucial minutes down the stretch of San Antonio's opening-game win.

The Spurs' main objective was to limit Nash without having to rely on further accidents. The mission given to defender Bruce Bowen was to hassle the two-time MVP endlessly, bodying and slapping at him and steering him into Manu Gin�bili, Tim Duncan or anyone else who might punish him. Nash's laudable 21.3 points and 12.7 assists over the series were offset by his 4.5 turnovers per game. The Suns, meanwhile, were prevented from running and forced to play at San Antonio's strangling pace. The other player who most concerned Popovich was Amar� Stoudemire. Although Stoudemire averaged 26.4 points and 10.6 rebounds in five games, he couldn't stay out of foul trouble. With Stoudemire on the bench, the Suns were forced to cover Duncan with Kurt Thomas, whose limited striking power enabled Duncan to guard the basket and cut off the drives of Nash and Leandro Barbosa.

And yet the Suns still had hope after they dominated the fourth quarter of their must-win Game 4 to even the series. But as Nash dribbled out the final seconds that night, he was hip-checked into the press table by Robert Horry, creating a momentary ruckus that drew Stoudemire and Boris Diaw off the bench. Their resulting one-game suspensions created a national outrage, as well as a frontcourt breach for San Antonio to exploit during its Game 5 comeback win in Phoenix that demoralized the Suns.

San Antonio returned home to clinch the series with a 114-106 win in Game 6 (absent Horry, who was suspended for two games). The series had not slipped away from Phoenix as much as it had been seized by the Spurs. Over those 13 days they had established their core strengths—the monstrous presence of Duncan at both ends (26.8 points, 13.7 rebounds and 4.2 blocks); the Nash-like probes of Tony Parker; the team defense spearheaded by Bowen; the management of tempo and game situations by Popovich; and finally the reclamation of Gin�bili, who worked his way out of an alarming slump to finish with games of 26 and 33 points. With Gin�bili once again driving to the basket like a halfback bouncing off linebackers and safeties, San Antonio emerged from this series looking, for the first time all season, like a finished product.