Spurs can wrap up NBA western finals
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-31 10:00

San Antonio is poised to complete an unlikely sweep over Phoenix in the NBA Western Conference final tonight. The Spurs have a commanding 3-0 lead over the team that posted the best record in the NBA during the regular season.

San Antonio is on the verge of reaching the NBA Finals thanks in a big way to Tim Duncan, who's averaging over 30 points and nearly 13 rebounds in the series. The Spurs are 5-0 against Phoenix this season when Duncan plays.

The Spurs go into tonight's game knowing that no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win an NBA post-season series.

"You can say whatever you want, but I think the big difference is No. 21's a terrific player," said Phoenix's Steve Nash, who knows about elite status after being named MVP this season.

"They're a terrific team and he's one of the best players ever to play," he said. "That's why they're as good as they are."

Duncan is averaging 30.3 points and 12.7 rebounds per game this series, but his impact goes much further.

When the Spurs have the ball, the defense tilts toward him, opening up outside shots and driving lanes for Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. When the Suns have the ball, they know their best path to the basket is the one farthest from him.

Duncan plays well against everyone, but he seems to especially be bad news for Phoenix. San Antonio is 5-0 against the Suns this season when Duncan plays, even though his counterpart, Amare Stoudemire, has scored at least 34 points every game.

With Phoenix on the ropes, Duncan wants to knock them out. Now.

"We don't want to give them any hope," he said. "We know how good a team they are and how their confidence would build with every win we give them, so we want to finish them out."

The odds are with San Antonio. No NBA team has come back from a three-game deficit. Even worse news for the Suns is that 3-0 leads have become sweeps 45 of 76 times, including three times for San Antonio in the Duncan era.

Among the many areas where Phoenix needs to improve is playing better in the first quarter.

How bad have the Suns' early jitters been?

_ They've trailed by 10, 13 and 11 points during the first quarters.

_ They've finished those quarters down by 10, 10 and nine points, continuing a trend that began in the last round against Dallas. They've "lost" eight straight first quarters.

_ They did have a first-quarter lead this series. Once. They were up 14-12 for all of 1 minute, 2 seconds in the opener. The best they've done since was tying it 2-2 each of the last two games.

No wonder coach Mike D'Antoni said with exasperation, "We just want to get to the second quarter and see what happens."

In the first two games, Phoenix showed why it was the league's highest-scoring team, putting together enough runs to lead in the fourth quarter. Yet the Spurs won both, raising the notion that the comebacks sapped the Suns' energy and emotion.

There was a lot less analysis needed to figure out what failed Phoenix after its slow start in Game 3 on Saturday night.

The Suns missed their first six shots of the second quarter and the last seven. Even with San Antonio struggling to score, too, Phoenix couldn't take advantage. The Suns had just 10 points in the period, matching their season low, and went into the locker room with just 39 points, their lowest first half of the season.

Phoenix did rally in the fourth, but not enough.

Nash has plenty of ideas about how the Suns can extend their season. In addition to "have a good start," he also mentioned having more fun and not getting so frustrated that they abandon the freewheeling playing style that's turned them from 29-game winners to conference finalists.

D'Antoni said they lost their form in Game 3, trying uncharacteristic things like muscling up on the Spurs or trying too often to beat people one-on-one.

Then again, San Antonio has taken Phoenix out of its game, mainly by cutting off the running game. The Spurs have done it by hustling back to prevent fast breaks and with the old-fashion method of putting the ball in the basket, something that's been made easier by the Suns' often being lackadaisical on defense.

"I think it's almost a relief when we get a stop and we sit and savor it instead of go, and that's our game," D'Antoni said. "We haven't gotten any fast-break points, transition 3s — all the things we live on. We're just not being aggressive, not changing ends of the floor very fast."

Down 3-0, they better hurry.

"We've just got to win one game right now," Nash said. "I think that would be a huge reward for us, change the spirit of the team and the series."

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