Nash Is Now the Clippers’ Problem

Don’t we know you from somewhere?

Laker fans who tuned into Monday’s Game 1, hoping to see someone, even the Clippers, beat the Phoenix Suns, had to notice a familiar little figure coming off a screen at the foul line and driving the lane ... or stepping back for a 15-footer ... or passing to the screener so he could drive the lane or take a 15-footer.

If you left and came back, there was the same little guy coming off that same screen with two Clippers on him -- or no one on him -- driving past them, shooting over them, passing around them.

Do not adjust your TV. This is not a Laker/Clipper fan’s nightmare. This is Steve Nash.

Fittingly enough, before Nash scored 31 points with 12 assists while making 10 of 15 shots, Commissioner David Stern had given him the most-valuable-player trophy for the second season in a row.

Of course, things being what they are, the grumbling about the first one had barely died down.

When Nash edged Shaquille O’Neal last spring, the Miami Herald’s Dan Le Batard wrote that the vote had been racially inspired.

This season, 21-year-old LeBron James finished second and sniffed, “I don’t believe in second.”

Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki finished third, but when the report got out that Nash had won, a Dallas Morning News headline said, “Dirk Snubbed.”

Nash isn’t a 7-footer like Nowitzki and would be a fly on the 6-7, 245-pound James’ windshield. On the other hand, Nash has spent the last five seasons running the league’s highest-scoring offense -- three with the Mavericks, two with the Suns -- and since coming back here, has shown he’s one of the few players who make the difference between winning and losing.

Forget MVP. As Laker announcer Mychal Thompson noted after two weeks of watching Nash turn Smush Parker around like a top, “He’s one of the all-time greats.”

By the way, if they can’t find Kwame Brown, he may still be wandering around US Airways Center.

Nothing now compares to the Suns’ pick-and-roll. Throughout O’Neal’s Laker career, the game’s most devastating play was a pass to Shaq in the low post, where he had to be double-teamed or he’d score at will. If opponents double-teamed, three defenders had to guard four Lakers, one of whom was Kobe Bryant.

Now, the game’s most devastating play is Nash running a pick-and-roll with ... whoever’s around.

In last spring’s West finals loss to the San Antonio Spurs, he ran it over and over with Amare Stoudemire, a prodigy in his own right, as they combined to average 60 points. Now with Stoudemire out, Nash is doing it with Boris Diaw, a nobody in his own right when he arrived last fall with a career average of 4.7. Nash didn’t just make Diaw better, he created him.

“I could have played for them,” Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy, who once led the league in three-point shooting, said Tuesday, laughing. “I would have loved to play with Steve Nash, no question.”

Instead, Dunleavy has to coach against Nash, which looks like a full-time job for the next two weeks ... or one, if the Clippers don’t make the Suns shoot more jump shots and fewer layups.

For all the concern about controlling tempo, the Suns scored 130 points in Game 1 with only 18 fastbreak points ... three more than they had in their 99-93 Game 2 loss to the Lakers.

With Elton Brand going for 40, the Clippers scored 42 points in the paint ... to the Suns’ 48.

With Nash slicing and dicing the Clipper defense, the Suns played half-court basketball and still turned it into a layup line.

“What makes their screen-and-roll hard to guard is, it’s unconventional,” said Brand, who had to switch out on the pick-and-roll and spent the night in no-man’s land between Diaw, who had 19 points, and Nash.

“You have [big players] that shoot the ball -- Tim Thomas, Boris Diaw, Shawn Marion -- that are spaced in the corners. They’re spaced on the wings. They’re all over the place....

“And you have Nash, who can shoot the ball and penetrate, so you have to stop him. It’s the layups that really hurt you, much more than the threes.”

Of course, while the layups hurt, the three-pointers fell like rain. The Suns made 12, shooting 44%. Normally the opposing coach would say he’d like to see them do that again, but they made 40% of their threes and averaged 10 a game this season.

Nash was his usual self-effacing self over the weekend, squirming at being “singled out,” joking about the MVP -- “It’s comedic and it’s unbelievable” -- worrying about living up to it.

Of course, as anyone who saw Game 1 might wonder, what’s the hard part?

“You’d hate to be awarded the MVP and have an awful game, fall on your face,” Nash said.

“I just tried not to embarrass myself after being singled out and recognized, and the commissioner flying all the way in, the fans all getting excited and getting behind me. I didn’t want to disappoint anybody after that.”

Only the Clippers were disappointed, but that was in the game plan.