A 2-Time MVP's Approach

That's what the reigning 2-time MVP Steve Nash looks like when a game gets tough.

After colliding heavily with Parker, he stood over the French guard for a few minutes checking if he was ok. When the camera finally panned to Nash himself, blood was gushing down his nose and dripping on his uniform.

"I know we hit our heads really hard, and he looked like he was really hurting, so I just wanted to make sure he was ok - that's it, really."

Umm, pretty calm words when Nash's cut ended up being so bad they weren't able to stop it and he missed 45 valuable seconds in the game's final minute as the Suns' tried to mount a comeback. Note: After suffering the injury, he did play for a few minutes and hit a big three with 2 minutes left, before the refs finally took him out for continuing to drip blood onto the court. Here are some random quotes from his post-game press conference - see if you get the gist of his message to his teammates:

"We just gotta try to learn from this one, and come back and play a great game Tuesday."

"There was nothing I could do. It was obviously frustrating, but it was really out of my hands. I was just gonna try and be positive for my teammates."

"I think we just gotta be a little hungrier. I thought some of us just didn't have the fire it took to beat a World Championship team, that's not giving yourself a chance. We gotta play a little harder, a little more desperate."

"For us to overcome them, we jus can't give them an inch."

"I just don't think we were hungry enough, and you gotta congratulate them - they made shots, maybe that's coz we didn't make that extra effort every single possession."

Then, when directly asked by some stupid reporter who hadn't caught on about the Suns' tendency to relax, he simply said, "How many times can you talk about it? We just have to have a bigger heart and continue to push through these invisible barriers that seem to pop up. I don't know what they are, but sometimes we just don't play as hard as we should."

Game 2 should be fun to watch. Amare needs to play with more aggression to maximize his athletic advantage over Tim Duncan. If he can't bring it, I'd play Kurt Thomas to bang with TD all game long. Shawn Marion needs more of his reckless abandon in attacking the offensive & defensive glass - he stood on the perimeter a few times as Suns' hoisted up 3s tonight, and that rarely happens when he's on his game. I'd like to see Barbosa create only on fast-break situations, and act as a finisher with either spot-up 3s or pick-and-roll drives to the hoop - just can't say his decision-making ability is up there with Nash's yet.

Nash's line for Game 1: 11-18 from the field (61%), 2-4 from the 3-point line, a perfect 7-7 from the charity stripe, and a healthy dose of 8 assists despite a Phoenix offense that saw much less movement & rhythm than we usually see.