Kwame’s inspired play is the icing on the cake

Did you hear that strange language being spoken at Staples Center Thursday night?

“Kwa-me! Kwa-me! Kwa-me!”

Could you feel that soulful thumping reverberating around a team that had previously lacked all soul?

“Dee-fense! Dee-fense! Dee-fense.”

Did you notice the one active verb, maybe the only active verb, that was not rippling through the masses that giddily stayed until the chest-pounding end?

Sweep.

Never heard it. Won’t hear it. Not now. Go figure.

Trailing by 17 points in the first quarter, trailing two-games-to-none in their first-round playoff series, the Lakers somehow found their heart, their muscle and their curious headband-wearing center.

In the end, they also found a 95-89 victory over the Phoenix Suns in a Game 3 that felt like a 12th round.

“For the first time in a long time, we took somebody’s best punch and came out swinging,” said Lamar Odom, who was so excited he even stripped the bandage off of his sliced left eyebrow.

Oh yeah. When the night finally ended, everyone in the building gleefully heard one more voice they thought they might not hear after another game this season.

Guy by the name of Randy Newman.

For once, at least for this night, these strange Lakers loved L.A. back.

No, the Lakers will not tie the franchise record of six straight playoff losses.

Nope, the Lakers will not be swept in an opening-round playoff series for the first time in 30 years.

And, no sir, Phil Jackson will not be swept in a playoff series for the first time in his 16-year coaching career.

“It shows what happens when we play like a team,” said Kwame Brown.

More to the point, it shows what happens when Kwame Brown plays like Kwame Brown.

Kobe Bryant scored a near-perfect 45 points with a team-leading six assists, but that wasn’t the difference.

Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa, the Suns’ stirring guards, combined to make just 11 of 27 shots with seven turnovers, but that wasn’t the difference either.

The difference was the guy who, with 4:32 remaining in the third quarter of a 61-61 tie game, was writhing on the floor with a twisted right ankle.

The Lakers had used defense and rebounding to come back from a horrid first quarter, but now they were growing tired, and they needed inside help, and that big hunk of help named Kwame Brown couldn’t move.

“I thought, ‘Oh no, not again,’ ” said Brown, who missed half the season with left ankle and shoulder injuries.

He was helped off the floor during a 20-second timeout. But instead of groaning, the crowd did the funniest thing. It cheered.

It was as if the fans knew Brown’s importance here and, despite his past failings, they were actually going to coax him back into the game.

Yes, he heard. And then he walked gingerly back onto the court to change the game and the series.

“Like Willis Reed,” Bryant said with a grin.

Well, no, not even close, but nice effort.

“It was all about the fans, they pumped me up and gave me the adrenaline to give it a shot,” Brown said. “Once I put pressure on the ankle and realized it was going to be OK, the crowd took over.”

And then, in an almost unimaginable four-minute stretch for a guy who has stumbled through most of his brief Lakers career, Brown took over.

Kobe to Kwame. Dunk.

Odom to Kwame. Dunk.

Luke Walton to Kwame. Dunk.

Kwame takes Amare Stoudemire to the basket for a layup and a foul. Three-point play.

By the time the stretch ended, the Lakers led by four points, and they would never trail again.

By the time the game ended, a guy who’d averaged 5.5 points in the first two games had scored a playoff career-high 19 points.

The crowd said it then. We’ll say it again. Admit it, you’ll be chanting it for the next two days.

Kwa-me! Kwa-me! Kwa-me!

Said Jackson: “He had his way tonight. He had the kind of game we’ve anticipated Kwame having.”

Sure, we all guessed it, right?

Not the Suns, whose coach, Mike D’Antoni, was quoted in a recently released book as saying that Brown was “awful.”

Said D’Antoni: “Kobe getting 45 points doesn’t matter.... Kwame got 19 and that hurt us.”

What hurt the Suns was that Stoudemire continually drifted away from Brown to guard Bryant, and Bryant unselfishly worked to find Brown under the basket.

“We just emphasized getting the ball in the post,” Brown said. “Even if nothing happened, I hung in there and tried to let it loose.”

The only thing crazier than Brown being an offensive hero was Shammond Williams being a defensive hero. But, well, that also happened, with Williams playing more minutes than starter Jordan Farmar while leading the attack on Nash and Barbosa.

“To a man, everybody stepped up and responded to the challenge,” Bryant said.

That even included Jack Nicholson, for whom the Lakers threw an impromptu birthday party after the first quarter.

With the crowd roaring, two Laker Girls walked over to the old guy with a huge sheet cake. Nicholson stuck his finger into the cake, stripped off a huge hunk of icing, and stuck it into his mouth with glee.

Which, from that moment forward, is exactly what the Lakers did to the Suns.

A hustling and hearty team, one day old and counting.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

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