Did anyone see Steve Nash get bashed over the eye, only to come back in the 4th quarter to help lead his team to a sweep of the San Antonio Spurs, a team that has dominated the Suns in the playoffs for god knows how many years.  There's one thing you have to give Nash credit for, and that's for being a gamer! A true warrior and tremendous leader, , it was defense, scrappy play, and 3 point shooting that lead them to the win.  That's one thing the Lakers lack, a consistent 3 point shooter, an outside threat, this whole Suns team is loaded with shooters, and scrappy defender/rebounders.  But one thing that has held true in the playoffs, no matter how well you shoot in the playoffs, the Laker big men, Gasol, Bynum, and Odom are just too much to handle inside, they offset all the missed three pointers and lack of outside shooting.  The Spurs didn't have the shooters or the inside threats to compete with the Suns, the Lakers do.  You thought at the beginning of the season when the Spurs acquired Richard Jefferson, they would be a powerhouse, because the Spurs much like the Jazz are such fundamentally  sound teams on both sides of the ball, offense and defense, but with role players, you need them to perform specific functions, Jefferson was an athletic 2nd option with any other team, but with the Spurs he was the 3rd or 4th option, and that leaves him open for jumpers and 3 pointers, not so many slashing opportunities, because one you have duncan posting up on the block, and you already have george hill, tony parker, and manu ginobili driving to the basket, leaving nothing open for Jefferson to do, he was a piece that on paper sounded great, but in reality didn't fit into the system, that's why Bruce Bowen was perfect, he was an all world perimeter defender, and an excellent spot up shooter.  Aging Big Three of the Spurs couldn't hang with the younger, athletic, run and gun offense of the Suns, plus the Suns were 9 deep in their rotations, their bench played a huge role in the sweep, terrible matchups for the Spurs across the board.  Which leads me to Ron Artest and his role for the Lakers, he's being asked to be a better version of Rick Fox, and be what Bruce Bowen was for the Spurs, he's been better than Fox defensively, but Fox just fit the Laker triangle, and he's the same as Bowen defensively, but Artest has never really been a role player in his career, he has either been the 1st or 2nd option in the offense, so now being the 3rd or 4th option in the offense, he is in the same plight as Richard Jefferson, he's open for jumpers and 3's, and not so much open for slashing to the rim or posting up.   His attitude and approach have a lot to do with how he's making it work for the Lakers, one the Lakers have a huge advantage inside that has to this point negated all the horrid shooting from artest and company, but it's also his selfless attitude to help the team do whatever it needs, scrappy play, loose ball chasing, defending, doing the dirty work if you will, these are the attributes that Richard Jefferson wasn't able to apply to his game to help the Spurs.  Lakers still have some unfinished business with Utah tomorrow night, but Utah doesn't have the pieces to beat the Lakers, had Okur and Kirilenko been 100%, this would have been a great series, but the Jazz just don't have enough surrounding Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer to make any noise against the Lakers.  Wes Matthews, and Kyle Korver had amazing performances for the Jazz, but they're still not doing anything inside the lane, jumpers  you can deal with, getting dunked on and surrendering easy buckets are demoralizing for your defense, you start doubling inside, and now your rotations and spacing are all thrown off, and the oppositions offense is allowed to flow.   The rest of the NBA has the same problem that the Thunder, and the Jazz are running into, you can't match up against the Lakers up front, a 50% bynum is still better than everybody in the league aside from D. Howard, Pau at power forward is too big and skilled for anyone else, throw odom in there, and you have an athletic big man who can do everything for you, and you're in trouble.   Now the Jazz and Thunder were able to slow those 3 down, but they couldn't overcome the size, I think Gasol had an offensive rebound tip in to win the Thunder series, and Gasol had 2 or 3 offensive rebounds in Game 3 against the Jazz that were the difference in the game.  Let's take a look at that Suns roster in the 4 and 5 spots, Amare, amazing, Louis Amundson, scrappy but still can't handle any of the Laker big men, Jarron Collins, I think he averages 4 minutes per game,  Channing Frye, good luck jacking up 3's when you have to spend most of your energy on defense guarding bynum or gasol, and well, I think he gives aways some weight to Gasol, so who knows, if the Suns stay hot shooting, they'll shoot themselves into the finals like the Magic did last year, BUT doing it for 4 games total against the world champs remains to be seen!   Eastern Conference I have no real interest in, I just hope Lebron loses, even though I despise the Celtics and the big two actresses, I like Ray Allen and Rondo, but Garnett and Pierce are just jibber jabber talkers, and whoever wins that will get their brains beat in by the Magic, they look too strong for either Boston or the Cavs.  If the Magic make it to the finals, they play exactly like the Suns, and they play right into the Lakers' hands, keep shooting threes, and let D. Howard waste his fouls on swatting kobe's shots away, while Pau and Bynum abuse Rashard Lewis, Ryan Anderson, and Marcin Gortat.  I'm telling you when you have to play defense, it's tough to get your shot going, when you're expending so much energy on the defensive end, look at last year, Lewis shot disappeared in the finals, will Jameer Nelson be the difference?  Vince Carter? Barners or Pietrus?  Unless all of those guys start driving to teh basket they don't ahve a chance, they shoot too many 3's and rely too much on D. Howard to do work inside and bail them out on teh defensive end, Bobcats had no offense to combat Magic poor shooting, and the Hawks are choking like they almost choked the Bucks series away, I actually really like that team a lot, Josh Smith, beast, Horford, nice work, marvin williams, what type of player are you supposed to be? Mike Bibby, where are you? Joe Johnson, man you shouldn't have left the Suns, but I like your work with the Hawks at least until this Magic series.  Jamal Crawford, you can't save this team, it's a mentality as a whole, you're a well spoke individual, that brings maturity to this team, but when your coach is getting called for technicals for being in the way of play, that tells you something, leadership is a huge deal.   Let the playoffs continue...