Vote of Confidence

Anyone who doesn’t think that the Suns are a playoff team, wasn’t listening to Lakers Head Coach Phil Jackson earlier today. The Hall of Fame coach believes that the Suns will end up one of the eight teams from the Western Conference to advance into the postseason, providing that point guard Steve Nash stays healthy.

“Granting that Nash gets back in a reasonable amount of time, I think that will really help them, especially this style that they’ve decided to play,” Jackson said. “He’s the guy that can really engineer that and that’ll help a lot.”

And if you think that Jackson and his Zen-like demeanor are detached from understanding the pulse of Planet Orange, think again. In fact, Jackson considers the Valley an all-too familiar setting for him.

“I think I’m more familiar with this locker room and this arena than any other place besides the home court,” he proclaimed.

Despite that intimate knowledge, it wasn’t enough Sunday to stop the Suns.

Spurred by the Blur

Since moving into the starting lineup for the injured Amar’e Stoudemire, Barbosa has thrived in Gentry’s up-tempo attack. Coming into Sunday’s contest, LB has averaged 21 points in his last five games, while shooting 56 percent from the floor. In fact, he’s averaging 17.5 points in his last 17 games, including one 40-point effort, which was the first of his career.

When he poured in 41 points on Feb. 20 against the Thunder, LB became just the fifth player in NBA history to record at least 40 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and six steals. The only other players to ever do so were Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Julius Erving and Walt Frazier.

With Nash still nursing a sprained ankle, he was the quarterback once again Sunday, racking up nine points in the first quarter, powering the Suns’ attack. LB shot 4-of-6 from the field while shifting the Suns from fifth gear to turbo-powered.

The Brazilian Blur also helped the Suns respond to the Lakers’ 17-4 run by collecting nine big points in third period, including a buzzer-beating layup that put the Suns up 10 heading into the final quarter. Barbosa finished the contest with 22 points, seven assists and two steals, while holding the Lakers’ Derek Fisher to one field goal and three points.

“He’s an open-court player,” Gentry said. “His speed and the way he attacks the basket in an open-court situation where there are a lot of possessions; he’s going to be pretty good.

“People always ask, ‘What is he?’” Gentry continued. “I don’t know what he is really, but just I know that he’s a really good basketball player. If you put him out there we get pretty good results.”

LB agrees that this tempo brings out the best in him.

“This is the way I like to play – running up and down – a lot of energy,” he said. “I think that it keeps the fans into the game and that’s the way they like to see us play. I’m very happy that we got back to doing what we do.”

The Blur is someone that thrives in a frenetic pace, illustrated by his recent offensive explosion. But despite what he’s done on offense, he’s also been active on defense. He’s had a steal in 11 consecutive games, has averaged three steals a game since the All-Star break and is leading the team with a 1.2 steals a game.

“I’m getting a lot of minutes so I’m trying to be really aggressive on defense,” Barbosa said. “Coach Gentry has been telling me to be aggressive on defense and get as many steals as I can.”

Camera Shy

The Suns’ jinx all season has been their inability to perform on nationally televised games. Coming into Sunday’s game, the Suns were 4-13 on national TV and 0-2 on ABC.

However, the Suns were able to step up make a dent in that record. The next challenge they have is to finally capture a win on TNT. They are 0-8 on Ted Turner’s network, but get a chance to erase their bagel when they play LeBron James and the Cavaliers at home on March 12.

Quote of the Day

Shaq on Raptor Chris Bosh’s comments about him cheating by getting away with three-second violations, “That strong words coming from the RuPaul of big men.”

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