Gentry sees Suns fighting way out of hole

Alvin Gentry stood on the sidelines in front of his team’s bench, his arms crossed during a stop in action, his eyes glued to the scoreboard that showed his Phoenix Suns down by 22 points with 4:52 left in the game.

Here Gentry was, coach of the Suns playing the favored Lakers in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Monday night, and seeing why the Lakers are the defending NBA champions and are bent on repeating.

His team lost by 21 points, a 128-107 whipping by the Lakers that put the Suns in a 0-1 hole in the best-of-seven series.

It was the most points the Suns have allowed in 11 playoff games. It was the most points the Suns have allowed in a loss since Jan. 2 against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Lakers ran out to a 28-point lead in the fourth quarter, seemingly having their way with Phoenix.

After his postgame news conference, Gentry went back inside Staples Center to meet his wife, Suzanne, and friends.

“Like my man in the movie ‘Invictus’ said, ‘My head is bloody, but unbowed,’ ” Gentry said.

Gentry smiled and laughed after he recited a verse from a short poem by English poet William Ernest Henley.

Game 2 is Wednesday night at Staples Center.

“The way we look at it is it’s one game,” Gentry said. “They’ve got to beat us three more times. We think we’ll play better. That’s the attitude that we have.”

The Suns gave up 54 points in the paint to the Lakers, a lot of it on drives and offensive rebounds and not from the Lakers pounding the ball down low as expected.

The Suns saw Kobe Bryant score 40 points on 13-for-23 shooting. They saw Lamar Odom burn them for 19 points and 19 rebounds. They saw the Lakers shoot 58% from the field, 47.1% from three-point range.

Conversely, a Phoenix team that led the NBA in three-point shooting percentage (41.2%) during the regular season made just 22.7% of its threes in Game 1.

It got so bad that when the Suns were down, 106-87, with 8:53 left, the Lakers’ fans started doing the wave during a timeout.

“It’s not like we’re going to hang our heads and not try to win Game 2,” said Steve Nash, who had 13 points and 13 assists. “We’ve just got to play better. If we play better, we give ourselves a chance to win.”

The Suns had won six straight playoff games, but that streak was snapped resoundingly.

But the Suns do cling to one hope.

They lost Game 1 at home to the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round and came back to win that series in six games.

“One thing about our guys, they’re a pretty resilient bunch,” Gentry said. “When we go through a situation like this, we usually find a way to regroup and come back and play well. Hopefully that will happen on Wednesday.”

broderick.turner@latimes.com

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