Bynum has right knee drained

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The Lakers have won 10 out of their last 12 games in the playoffs since Kobe Bryant got his bothersome right knee drained prior to Game 5 of Los Angeles' first-round series with Oklahoma City. Now the Lakers hope that a similar procedure done to Andrew Bynum will help them win four out of seven games in the NBA Finals to capture the championship against the Boston Celtics.

The 22-year-old Lakers center had his right knee drained (or "aspirated" in medical terms) Monday morning.
Bynum suffered a slight tear of the meniscus of his right knee in Game 6 against the Thunder and has been limited in the playoffs, averaging 9.1 points, 7.7 rebounds and 24.2 minutes per game while recovering from a late-season strain to his left Achilles and navigating the pain and swelling that accompanied the right knee injury.

"It was just getting worse," Bynum said after the Lakers film session in preparation for the Celtics on Monday. "The swelling wasn't leaving so we had to do it ... I was doing the treatment, but [the swelling] wasn't going anywhere like in the previous three rounds so I just had to drain it."
Bynum said he could not feel any immediate benefit from the drain because there was still medicine in the knee numbing the pain, but said he would find out if the procedure had a positive impact Wednesday, when he plans to return to practice.

"It supposedly will make you feel more healthy, so that I'll find out come practice day," Bynum said. "I think that practice is going to be what kind of determines that for me, especially because I'll be running on it and cutting and it will be a full, hard day."

The procedure did wonders for Bryant, who described the draining as having "the nasty stuff sucked out of my knee." Bryant averaged 24 points on 38.4 percent shooting in the first four games against the Thunder before having his knee drained and has been on a tear ever since, averaging 31.3 points on 51.5 percent shooting in his last 12 games.

Bynum had 17 points and 14 rebounds and four blocks against the Utah Jazz in Game 2 of the conference semifinals shortly after sustaining the right knee injury, but has been inconsistent ever since then. After Bynum finished with just two points and two rebounds in Game 3 of the conference finals against Phoenix, Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he was considering keeping Bynum out of the lineup to rest his knee. Bynum responded with 12 points and eight rebounds in Game 4.

"I expect that he's going to come out and give us some really good minutes," Jackson said Monday. "It may not be heavy minutes, but I think he'll give us some good minutes. He's got some effective things that he's done against the Celtics over the course of the year."

Bynum was sidelined with a dislocated knee cap in his left knee in 2008 when the Celtics beat the Lakers in the Finals in six games. He was not even able to attend all of the games while he received treatment on his knee from a specialist in New York.




Boston has added the 6-foot-11, 230-pound Rasheed Wallace and has started to utilize the 6-9, 289-pound Glen Davis in a frontline that already included the 6-11, 253-pound Kevin Garnett and 6-10, 280-pound Kendrick Perkins two years ago.

Any contributions that Bynum's 7-foot, 285-pound body can add will be welcome for the Lakers.
"They're going to need me doing better than I am, that's for sure," Bynum said. "Going into it, I'm aware of that. We're just studying, looking at film, watching at how they're defending the post, watching our previous two games. I was effective in both of those games, so I'm going to need to play at that level and higher for us to be better."

Bynum averaged 16.5 points and 10 rebounds on 50 percent shooting in two regular season meetings against Boston this season that the Lakers split, winning by one point in Boston on Jan. 31 and then losing by one point in L.A. on Feb. 18 (with Bryant out with a sprained left ankle).
"I'm out there for whatever they ask me to do, any amount of minutes," Bynum said. "You don't come this far just to say, 'OK, I can't go anymore.'"

Even though Bynum was unable to play in 2008, he recognizes the revenge factor that this series presents to the Lakers.

"It's a great opportunity for us to get one back," Bynum said. "You never want to let that slip. It's an opportunity for us to say, 'We can beat these guys.' Nobody can come up to us and say, 'You guys can never beat Boston, you went to the Finals three times, they beat you twice.' We don't want to hear any of that. That's a motivating factor for us."

CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE SOURCE

Lakers eliminate Suns to advance to NBA Finals against Celtics

Kobe Bryant leads the way with 37 points, including a key basket late in the game, in a 111-103 victory at Phoenix. Ron Artest comes up big with 25 points.

One old nemesis was summarily dismissed by the Lakers, the sight of the vanquished Suns looking spectacular in the rear-view mirror in the aftermath of the Western Conference finals.Redemption accomplished?Not quite.Next up: The biggest, baddest Lakers nemesis of all: the Celtics. They may have shelved memories of twin past playoff losses to the Suns, with a 111-103 victory over Phoenix in Game 6 at US Airways Center, winning the best-of-seven series, four games to two.It was anything but straightforward because of a thrown elbow by the Lakers' Sasha Vujacic early in the fourth quarter, which almost single-handedly revived the Suns.For the Lakers, forward Ron Artest, the last-gasp hero of Game 5, paved the way with a strong first half and finished with 25 points, and Kobe Bryant had a game-high 37 points, and 11 of those came in the fourth quarter.Steve Nash, who had provided assurances that the series would go back to Los Angeles for Game 7, had 21 points for the Suns, who were led by Amare Stoudemire's 27 points.It was the Suns' first loss in seven home playoff games, and the Lakers earned their third straight trip to the NBA Finals.Which brings this all back to Boston. Afterward, the image of the Lakers' loss to the Celtics in the 2008 Finals almost immediately surfaced. Not that it is ever far from the thoughts and minds of Lakers players and fans.This is why Lakers center Andrew Bynum, who didn't know better, started talking about playing the Celtics.Last week.This is why the spectators were chanting, "We Want Boston! We Want Boston!" at Staples Center during Game 2, back before the Suns turned this into a compelling series with wins in Games 3 and 4 in Phoenix, confounding the Lakers with their zone defense.The Lakers started to figure it out, started to find the seams and the holes in the defense, and were fueled by an uncommonly strong offensive showing by Artest, who hit three three-pointers in the first half and added one more in the third quarter.Los Angeles led, 65-53, at the half, and built a 17-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.Then came the elbow.The Lakers' comfort zone became hugely unsettled when Vujacic raised him arms in front of Suns reserve point guard Goran Dragic, which managed to jar the Suns out of their malaise early in the fourth quarter.That old Slovenian rivalry -- who knew? -- between the Dragic and Vujacic flared after Dragic hit a jumper to cut the lead to 15 points in the first minute of the final quarter.Vujacic's left elbow struck Dragic after his jumper and down went Dragic, which earned Vujacic a flagrant foul-1.Worse yet, for the Lakers, that immediately ignited the Suns, their crowd and Dragic, in no particular order. Dragic poured in eight points in less than a minute and the Suns' bench started looking like a carbon copy of Game 4.The Suns went on runs of 12-2 and 16-4 to slice away at the Lakers' huge lead and pull within five, points, 95-90, with 5:35 remaining.That left it to Bryant to salvage matters -- again.He had hit an improbable 28-footer to close out the first half and Suns Coach Alvin Gentry said to his team at halftime, in a clip shown on TV: "There's not anybody in America that could do a thing about it."He could have been talking about Bryant in the fourth quarter as well.

ARTICE SOURCE HERE

Ron Artest rescues the Lakers with last-second shot

The forward's follow of Kobe Bryant's miss gives the Lakers a 103-101 victory over the Suns and puts them one victory from the NBA Finals.

If there's a faster point of redemption in Lakers playoff history, it wasn't coming to mind, not after Jack Nicholson looked so stunned, Kobe Bryant looked so irritated and Ron Artest looked so confused.Staples Center had fallen silent after Jason Richardson banked in a three-pointer with 3.5 seconds left, not long after practically the entire crowd begged Artest to stop shooting when he missed two open looks from the left side near the one-minute mark.But then Artest, of all people, maligned much of the season as Lakers fans pined for Trevor Ariza, carved out the franchise's latest slice of playoff lore with an improbable play against the Phoenix Suns.Bryant's herky-jerky three-point attempt missed badly from the right side with 2.5 seconds left, but Artest beat Richardson to the airball and put in an off-balance follow that banked in as time expired, giving the Lakers a 103-101 victory Thursday in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals.
It was stunning, it was surreal, and it put the Lakers up in the series, 3-2. Game 6 in the best-of-seven series is Saturday in Phoenix.Artest had made one of eight attempts and scored only two points before the putback.Bryant ran over to Artest and jubilantly grabbed him. Then Lamar Odom arrived, then pretty much the entire Lakers bench.It mirrored another sequence this playoff season, Pau Gasol's follow shot with 0.6 seconds left to close out the Oklahoma City series, but the drama was much thicker, the plotline deeper this time as the Lakers faced a massive collapse.Biggest shot of Artest's career?"Biggest layup," he said, smiling, correcting the interviewer. "I missed a lot of layups during the regular season. Now I'm missing jumpers and missing layups, but, you know, staying with it."And then some, pushing the Lakers to an 8-0 home record in the playoffs and a ninth consecutive Game 5 victory.Every Lakers fan in Staples Center groaned when Artest hoisted an errant 20-footer with 1:02 to play and then missed a three-point attempt with 22 seconds on the shot clock after Gasol tracked down the rebound.The Lakers led by three at the time, but Richardson evened up the game after the Suns kept the possession alive with two offensive rebounds."That bank shot from three was pretty fortunate too," Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said before paraphrasing Shaquille O'Neal from a similar last-second playoff victory. "One good shot deserves another one."The Lakers called a 20-second timeout. Even Artest's coach was wondering why he was back on the court for the final possession."I don't know why I left him in the game," Jackson said. "I actually questioned it myself when I put him out there on the floor, and there he was. Made the key play."Artest quickly went from a mess to the night's best.In all his years of pro basketball as both a player and coach, Jackson said he had never seen such a turnaround so quickly by a player."No I have not," he said. "I'm still recovering."Artest is shooting poorly in the postseason (39.2%), not that anybody on the Lakers cared about percentages. Or probabilities.

ARTICLE SOURCE HERE

Lakers - Suns Game 5 WCF Preview

The Lakers’ swagger is more of a stagger after consecutive losses in the Western Conference finals.
After leaving town last week to chants of “We want Boston,” Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol realize they won’t even get the chance to defend their NBA title unless Los Angeles starts defending the Phoenix Suns.
Although Gasol says Game 5 on Thursday night is “a must-win for us,” the champions’ California cool shows few signs of cracking, beyond Bryant’s grumbling about missed defensive assignments.
After surviving a near-identical jam in last season’s conference finals against Denver, the Lakers came away with a confidence they can rise to any occasion—even a best-two-of-three series against a surging, shot-making opponent with rising confidence of its own.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that we love this,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Wednesday, not sounding much like a coach planning to fill out retirement papers next month. “This is what champions are made of. If you have the best teams in the West going up against each other, it should come down to a challenge like this. … This is what basketball at this level is. Like I told them, ‘If you can’t meet this challenge, then why go to the finals?”’
The Lakers have been in this situation three previous times over the past two playoffs: a series tied at 2, with Game 5 at home. Los Angeles won each time, beating Houston and the Nuggets last season before trouncing Oklahoma City last month in the first round. Overall, they’ve won Game 5 seven straight times at home.
Yet the Suns hold every smidgen of momentum heading back to Staples Center after winning the last two games with a gimmicky zone defense, impressive bench play and another phenomenal exhibition of offense. Los Angeles’ 58 percent shooting in its first two victories masked its full series of ineffective defense so far: Los Angeles has yielded 113 points per game, and Phoenix has shaken off a brief spell of outside shooting problems.
At least the Lakers are back home, where they haven’t lost in seven playoff games this spring.
“The momentum we have, the confidence we have now, is definitely going to help us going to L.A.,” said Suns forward Amare Stoudemire, who shook off two mediocre games at Staples Center with big efforts in Phoenix. “We definitely can win there. It’s just a matter of us implementing our will.”
Will was a popular topic in El Segundo as well, with Bryant declaring that most of the Lakers’ problems are mental lapses on execution and assignments. After nearly posting a triple-double in Game 4, Bryant lamented Los Angeles’ inability to stick to its assignments when the Suns repeatedly ran their pick-and-roll, drive-and-dish offense.
“My message is offensively, we’re going to score enough points,” Bryant said. “Defensively, we’ve got to do a much better job. That’s my message. We’ve got to grind, do a better job staying in front of them.”
The Lakers uniformly downplayed the importance of Phoenix’s zone defense, a 2-3 scheme that puts defenders on both sides of Los Angeles’ post players. The Lakers’ shooting decreased sharply in Phoenix, but Jackson snorted at the idea he’s being outmaneuvered, noting his club still scored 107.5 points per game in Arizona.
“They challenge you in a lot of ways that we have to adjust to,” Gasol said. “It’s mostly stuff we know about. It’s about being alert all the time.”
Suns coach Alvin Gentry will have to miss his son’s elementary school graduation on Thursday night after his club avoided the sweep that seemed highly possible after its first two losses in Los Angeles.
Gentry persuaded his players to stick with his simple defensive scheme in the past two games. The Suns allowed Bryant to work his usual offensive magic, but forced the Lakers’ low-post scorers to work extra hard for shots—or to give up the ball to the Lakers’ rather ordinary perimeter shooters, including Derek Fisher, Ron Artest and Shannon Brown.
“We want to stop everyone, but sometimes you just can’t stop Kobe,” Suns guard Steve Nash said of Bryant, who’s averaging 28.9 points per game in the playoffs. “So we can’t get discouraged. He’s playing as well as maybe he’s ever played right now. He may continue to do that. We’ve proven we can win if he plays great, but we’ve got to be really solid. We’ve got to be tough. We’ve got to win all the little battles, because they do have some matchups and talent that we don’t have.”
Jackson echoed Nash’s concerns about the little things, citing a few offensive rebounds the Lakers failed to secure in the first quarter of Game 4. Those mistakes eventually snowballed into team-wide problems with execution, even after the Lakers took care of almost every detail in the first two games while extending their playoff winning streak to eight games.
“We understood that it was going to be hard,” Gasol said. “The first two results we obtained gave us a good feeling, but we knew the Suns were going to bounce back, and they have.”
Bryant and center Andrew Bynum didn’t appear to practice with the Lakers on Wednesday, although Jackson didn’t say for sure. Bynum is playing on an injured right knee that will require surgery, while Bryant simply takes advantage of every chance to rest his accumulated injuries.

ARTICE SOURCE HERE

Jackson calls Thursday's game 'critical'

PHOENIX -- The number on the white board in the Los Angeles Lakers' locker room, representing the countdown to the wins necessary to complete their road to a repeat, remained at six after Tuesday's 115-106 Game 4 loss to the Phoenix Suns -- but the only thing on the team's mind seemed to be Game 5 on Thursday.
"Critical game," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We say they're all critical, but this is what playoffs are about. If you can support yourself on the home court, you have a chance of going back and pulling an upset or winning the game, No. 5, and creating the momentum change. So, we'll see what comes out on Thursday. Should be interesting."

For the second time this postseason, the Lakers jumped out to a 2-0 lead to start a series, only to lose Games 3 and 4 on the road. Against Oklahoma City in the first round, Los Angeles was able to take Game 5 at home and Game 6 on the road to close out the series before it went the distance.

Working in the favor of the Lakers, the No. 1-seeded team in the Western Conference, is their home-court advantage. The Lakers have yet to lose a game at Staples Center this postseason, going 7-0.
"Now we've got to go back home and make sure we have a really good intense game, where we set the tone from the first second and we play as hard as possible for 48 minutes," Pau Gasol said after racking up just 15 points and five rebounds Tuesday. Gasol averaged 25 points in Games 1 and 2 at home and just 19 points in Games 3 and 4 on the road.


"We've got to understand they're a team that's dangerous, as they proved," Gasol said. "I think people were overlooking them after the first two games and [were] just thinking ahead already. And so obviously, that's a big mistake."

Lakers - Suns Game 4 WCF Preview

PHOENIX (AP)—Losing one game in Phoenix was tolerable for the Los Angeles Lakers. Two losses and things start to get uncomfortable for the reigning NBA champions.
It’s safe to say that coach Phil Jackson was giving his team a refresher course on how to beat a zone defense when the Lakers worked out at US Airways Center on Monday after Phoenix employed the strategy to great success in its 118-109 victory on Sunday night. The Suns can square the series at 2-2 with another home win in Game 4 on Tuesday night.Jackson said he had never seen a team use the zone so much in a playoff game since the NBA legalized the defense in the 2001-02 season, not that Kobe Bryant seemed all that concerned.
When asked if a day of practice would be enough to work out how to attack the zone, he answered sarcastically.
“Nah,” he said. “We’re doomed.”
The Suns used the zone much of the second quarter and the entire second half. Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said that was more than he anticipated but he stuck with it because it worked when nothing else had against the Lakers, who averaged 126 points and shot 58 percent in the series’ first two games.
There were inferences on Monday that the zone is somehow an “unmanly” defense, that real teams play man-to-man.
“We have to try every way we can to find a situation where we can win,” Gentry said. “Whatever that takes, that’s what it is. If we have to play our ‘girlie zone’ as somebody said, we’ll play our ‘girlie zone.”’
Steve Nash’s nose and Andrew Bynum’s knee were main subjects of discussion on Monday.
Nash has a small nasal fracture from a fourth-quarter collision with Derek Fisher but said he’s had “a handful” of broken noses and expected to be fine for Game 4. After all, he played the fourth quarter of Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals with his right eye swollen shut after taking an elbow from Tim Duncan .
“To me I think he’s as tough as they come,” Gentry said. “You saw what happened in the game last night, he tried to rearrange his own nose. My wife was in a car accident and broke her nose. It almost made her physically sick to see him grab his nose and just try to rearrange it himself.”
Bynum got in early foul trouble and had just two points and two rebounds in 7 1/2 minutes on Sunday night. After the game, Jackson talked about perhaps having the big center, who has a small meniscus tear in his right knee, sit out the next game. But Jackson said on Monday that Bynum would play.
“I talked to him this morning. He feels like he’s OK,” the Lakers coach said. “I was worried that he was impinging on his ability to play by concern about his health and status, and he says he’s OK.”
Jackson isn’t about to rest Bynum just to get him more ready for a finals matchup against Boston.
“The only thing there is is the Phoenix series,” Jackson said. “If we don’t just stay focused on that, there’s nothing else. You have to play immediately for this series and forget about whatever else is down the road.”
The taller Lakers dominated the inside game in the first two contests, but Phoenix’s front line duo of Amare Stoudemire and Robin Lopez outscored the Lakers’ trio of Pau Gasol , Bynum and Lamar Odom 62-35 in Game 3. Gasol scored 23 on 11 of 14 shooting, but Odom made just 4 of 14 shots for 10 points.
Criticized widely for his play in the first two games of the series, Stoudemire attacked the rim from the start. In addition to making 14 of 22 field goals, he was 14 of 18 at the foul line. He had 11 rebounds, two more than in the first two games combined.
Lopez scored 20 on 8 of 10 shooting and his 7-foot presence anchored the Suns’ zone. He played 29 1/2 minutes in just his third game back after being sidelined with a bulging disk in late March.
In all, the Suns made 37 of 42 free throws to 16 of 20 for the Lakers.
That, Bryant said, was the difference.
Stoudemire knows he will be Los Angeles’ No. 1 target in Game 4.
“I’m not sure what they’re going to do,” he said, “but I guarantee you Phil is going to come up with something slick.”
Bryant nearly had a triple double with 36 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds but was just 2 of 8 on 3s. He said the Lakers were lured into taking a franchise playoff record 32 3-point shots, making nine of them.
“We’re not a great 3-point shooting team consistently anyway,” he said. “We did have good looks and sometimes get baited into taking those, some of them with the shot clock being low, granted. But we can do a much better job the first 17 seconds of the clock.”
He said the team also needs to clean up some “silly” turnovers. The Lakers had 17, five by Bryant, to the Suns’ seven.
Jason Richardson made 4 of 7 3-pointers on Sunday night. The rest of the Suns were 1 of 13. Channing Frye’s woes worsened. He went 0 of 7, 0 of 5 on 3s, and is 1 of 20 for the series. He has missed 17 in a row.
Frye was the last player off the practice court, shooting jumper after jumper. He was miffed about having to answer questions about “something little” like his shooting problems after such a big win.
“Sometimes the ball doesn’t go in, man. It’s just one of those things. It’s just not going in,” he said. “It’s going to go in tomorrow, though, I’m going to tell you that. They’re going to go in tomorrow.”
Bryant said, not surprisingly, that no one on his team was panicking. And just when was the last time Bryant panicked on the basketball court? In high school, maybe?
“When my shorts fell down,” he said. “They were too big.”

ARTICLE SOURCE HERE

Stoudemire's 42 points pull Suns back into series, cut Lakers' lead to 2-1 in West finals

PHOENIX -- Amare Stoudemire had been criticized for just about everything: his defense, his rebounding, even his desire.

The Phoenix forward listened calmly all week, then responded with a monster game. Stoudemire attacked the Los Angeles Lakers relentlessly, matching his career playoff high with 42 points and grabbing 11 rebounds to power the Suns to a 118-109 victory Sunday night. The win sliced the Lakers' lead in the Western Conference finals to 2-1.

All that talk about a Lakers-Boston final has been put on hold. The Suns can pull even in the series with a victory at home in Game 4 on Tuesday night.

Stoudemire, with a bandage over a cut he received when his goggles slammed into his forehead on a drive to the basket, said he has worked through serious knee and eye injuries and kept his career at an All-Star level.

"You can never question my determination," he said, "my focus, my dedication. That's one of the reasons I've persevered through injuries and continue to try to improve every summer. My dedication to the game is at an all-time high."

Phoenix, dominated inside in the first two games, won with its big men, and a big advantage at the free throw line.

Robin Lopez, whose 7-foot presence gave the Suns some much-needed toughness inside, scored 20 on 8-of-10 shooting in 31 minutes, by far his most playing time since returning from a back injury at the start of the series. Phoenix made 37-of-42 free throws, 14 of 18 by Stoudemire. The Lakers were 16 of 20 at the line.
Kobe Bryant had 36 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds. Pau Gasol scored 23 points, but the Lakers didn't get as much help from their supporting cast as they did in the first two games.

The Suns, the second-best 3-point shooting team in NBA history in the regular season, were just 5 of 20. But Jason Richardson was 4 of 7, including one with 26 seconds to go to put the lid on the triumph, snapping the Lakers' eight-game playoff winning streak.

"We certainly didn't come out to play the way I wanted," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said, "and we certainly didn't play the way I wanted at the end."

Richardson scored 19. Steve Nash had 17 points and 15 assists before banging his nose in a fourth-quarter collision with Derek Fisher. Nash said he didn't think it was broken but planned to see a specialist before practice on Monday.

"They attacked the hoop today," Jackson said, "and, you know, earned 42 foul shots. That's really the game plan. We seemed to be staying home on the 3-point shooters, and Stoudemire and Lopez had a night for them."

Stoudemire, who had just nine rebounds in the first two games and had been criticized for his lack of defense and absence of fire, scored repeatedly on drives to the basket, when he either made the basket, was fouled, or both. The All-Star power forward, who can opt out of the final year of his contract after this season, made 10-of-12 shots in the second half, scoring 16 in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth.
Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said he knew Stoudemire would respond.

"He knew he didn't play well in L.A.," Gentry said.

Stoudemire had said Lamar Odom had "a lucky game" with 19 points and 19 rebounds in Game 1. Odom was far more complimentary after Game 3.

"He had a wonderful game," Odom said. "He got to the hole and was forceful. He played great."
Odom, meanwhile, made just 4-of-14 shots and had 10 points and six rebounds before fouling out. He and Andrew Bynum, bothered by his sore right knee, both got in early foul trouble.

"It was one of those games," Odom said. "It happens."
Jackson said Bynum might not play in Game 4.

"I'll talk to him and see how he feels about it," Jackson said. "I think he was ineffective. There were some things that got by him."
As for Lopez, Gentry called the second-year pro's offense "a big surprise." Lopez had been out since March 28 with a bulging disk before playing in this series.

The Suns played a lot of zone defense after the Lakers averaged 126 points and shot 58 percent in the first two games. Los Angeles shot 48 percent in this one. The Lakers had a 27-4 advantage in second-chance points, but were outscored 18-3 on fast-break points.

"When they started making shots, we had to go to the zone," Gentry said. "Tonight it worked and we stuck with it."
 
Los Angeles, though, led 90-89 when Odom made two free throws with 8:47 to play.
Lopez entered the game for the struggling Channing Frye, and Phoenix took the lead for good 91-90 on Jared Dudley's baseline drive with 8:27 left.

Frye missed all seven of his shots, five of them 3s, and is shooting 1 for 20 in the series, 1 for 14 on 3s. He has missed 17 straight shots.

Phoenix scored the last seven points of the second quarter to lead 54-47 at the half and was up 86-84 after three quarters, thanks to two free throws by Leandro Barbosa with 1.5 seconds left following an ill-advised foul at midcourt by Shannon Brown.

 CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE SOURCE