Nobody is really talking about this play, mainly because on the next possessions the Suns came down and hit the game tying three, but I thought it was an interesting move that should be looked at.  For just about the entire game, the Lakers were switching all screen and rolls, basically inviting Steve Nash to become aggressive on defense.  Nash obliged by putting up 29 points on 20 shots.  Towards the end of the game the Suns weren’t even running the screen and roll, they were just setting the screen up high to get the switch and let Nash work against a mismatch:

As you can see, the Lakers don’t initially switch the screen, so the Suns just run it again.  The second time, Gasol ends up on Nash who knocks down a step back jumper.

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The Suns were coming off of a huge possession where they got two offensive rebounds and then a banked in three to tie the game at 101.  All they needed to do was get 1 more stop with 3.5 seconds left to send the game into overtime.  The Suns actually played really good defense to force Kobe into a tough shot, but they weren’t able to secure the rebound afterwords:

As Lamar Odom gets the basketball, Derek Fisher curls under Pau Gasol to the near corner.  As this is happening Ron Artest replaces Fisher and fills his spot.  The purpose of all this movement is to clear out space at the top of the key, where I think the play was designed to be run to.

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