SAN ANTONIO - It is hard to rest easy in a horror movie until the villain is assuredly dead.
When those hated San Antonio Spurs were reeling backward, they made one last strike at the hero. An inadvertent Tim Duncan elbow to Steve Nash's right eye drew blood and conjured up dreadful memories of another bloody Sunday in the 2007 prequel.
Nash got six stitches and the eye swelled nearly shut, turning him into the vengeful monster. The man with one good eye and two MVPs had suffered five playoff deaths with the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix at the Spurs' hands but slew the beast this time with a 10-point, five-assist fourth quarter that helped the Suns win 107-101 and complete a sweep in the Western Conference semifinals.
Celebrating the one-year anniversary of the lifting of an interim tag on turnaround architect Alvin Gentry's coaching title, the Suns erased a decade of playoff misery with the Spurs by winning as many games in this series as they had in the 2005, 2007 and 2008 series combined. Phoenix won a franchise-best six consecutive playoff games to advance to its ninth Western Conference finals in franchise history. They could be facing the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, who lead their series 3-0 over Utah.
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All the sweeter, the team nobody figured on being in the NBA final four got there by being the first team to sweep San Antonio since the Lakers in 2001.
"I just wanted to win the game," said Nash, who opened the series with a 33-point, 10-assist effort in Game 1. "I didn't want to just be out there faking it. We'd come so far and had such a great opportunity. I don't want to glorify it and make it into fairy tales, but it's been a long time that I haven't been able to beat this team and I had a great shot at it. I was just trying to close it out and do everything I could."
The Suns looked as if they had vanquished their playoffs demon a bit with each game and had the Spurs' fans and team on their last breath in the middle of Sunday's third quarter.
Then Duncan caught Nash's eye with an elbow on a scoring drive to the hoop. Nash had to leave the floor for the rest of the quarter, and the Spurs continued an 11-0 run that tied the game.
"I said to the guys and Coach, 'Here we go again,'" said Suns guard Leandro Barbosa, the only player besides Nash and Amare Stoudemire who has been around for the three playoff series losses to San Antonio.
Nash returned to start the fourth quarter with his eye blanketed with a bandage.
"He looked like Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini," teammate Grant Hill said.
Unable to see out of the right eye, Nash committed two turnovers and was questioning whether he should stay on the court when he thought he would test his theory with a transition pull-up three-pointer. It was dead-on and he did not stop there, hitting a floater to the right as he was fouled, a pull-up jumper and a double-team-splitting drive while also finding teammates in spots he could not see.
"When they finished stitching me up and it was closed and I couldn't see, I started to think to myself, 'Of course,' " Nash said. "But I wanted to give it a try. Luckily it worked out.
"I was trying to seize whatever I could and not change my game too much."
Hill held Manu Ginobili to 2-for-11 shooting to head the Suns' defensive tone. Stoudemire had his 2010 postseason-high 29 points, showing how the Suns' depth carried them through the series.
And in classic Suns style, they made 10 three-pointers in the game to help keep them ahead through three quarters despite 40 percent shooting.
"This is a great feeling," Hill said. "This has been an unbelievable season and is an unbelievable group of players. We don't want this to end."
Up next
• What: Western Conference Finals
• Who: Suns vs. Lakers or Jazz
• When: TBA
