PHOENIX -- It's common to think of the Portland Trail Blazers as a young team, and for the most part they still are. But Sunday, it was a pair of old geezers, 36-year-old Marcus Camby and 34-year-old Andre Miller, that helped the Blazers to a 105-100 Game 1 upset of Phoenix and provided the first genuine drama of the NBA playoffs.
Miler was the lead story, dominating offensively with 31 points and eight assists and exploding for 15 points in the deciding fourth quarter. The highlight was a 3-pointer with 4:28 remaining in which the career 20.9-percent shooter held his snapped wrist up for effect as if he was another Miller from L.A. named Reggie. His rare triple gave Portland an 88-87 lead that they would never relinquish, kicking off a 14-5 run over a three-minute span that all but put the game away for Portland.
I say "all but" because Miller had to save the game again at the end, making the game-icing free throws with 3.7 seconds left after some loose Blazer foul shooting in the final 90 seconds gave the Suns a chance to tie the game late. But Steve Nash's long 3-point attempt with five seconds left hit the front of the rim and bounced away, and the Blazers had the win.
In six visits to the line in the final 90 seconds, only Miller's produced two points -- the other Blazers missed six of eight to make the final seconds far more interesting than they should have been. When Jarred Bayless bricked a pair with 12 seconds left and the Blazers leading 103-100, the Suns had a chance to tie. However, without a timeout the Suns couldn't get a great look. Nash dribbled across half court behind a double screen and fired for the tie from well beyond the line but couldn't send the game to OT.
Yet it was Camby that arguably had an even greater impact. Going against the league's top-ranked defense, the veteran shut down top scorer Amare Stoudemire and dominated the defensive glass. Camby only scored four points, but finished with 17 rebounds and three blocks while playing on a gimpy ankle that he rolled in practice on Saturday.
While Camby acted his age on a couple of late-game plays -- missing two free throws with 1:21 left and then a breakaway dunk with 50 seconds remaining that could have put the game away -- by then he'd already done his damage.
Camby's biggest play came just seconds earlier, when he stole the ball from Stoudemire on a left-block isolation with 1:29 left and the Suns down five. Just prior, he teamed with Miller on a similar play to draw a charge on Stoudemire, after Camby had forced the right-dominant Stoudemire left and into an awkward shot attempt that sent him crashing into a rotating Miller. For the night, Stoudemire had 18 points on 19 shots, committing four turnovers and handing out just two assists.
The upgraded defense was a continuation of a late-season trend for Portland. The Blazers went 16-3 down the stretch in games played by Camby, including Brandon Roy-less victories over the Lakers and Thunder. Only three of those 19 opponents hit the century mark, and while Phoenix just scraped over the line Sunday, the Blazers held the Suns to 41.8 percent shooting and limited them to a piddling four fast-break points.
For the Suns part, they insisted that they can play better and perhaps they're right. Phoenix only made 11-of-32 from 3-point range after leading the league in the regular season. As if to drive home that point, Nash said, "we just didn't play well" four times in his post-game press conference.
However, one wonders if there's something deeper in this match-up that favors Portland. The Blazers won two of three in the regular season, including once without Roy, and now have stolen home-court advantage from the Suns in this playoff series. While it's still early days, the game played out almost exactly like the teams' three regular-season meetings. And as long as their two old guys keep leading the way, the Blazers seem like the team best-poised to break the favorites' monopoly on the first round.
