Ron Artest is surrounded by his teammates after hitting the game-winning shot in Game 5. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

Ron Artest waited all season to make his mark as a L.A. Laker and his moment finally came Thursday night.

After the Phoenix Suns rallied from an 18-point deficit and tied the score at 101 with 3.5 seconds left on Jason Richardson’s bank shot from the behind the 3-point line, the Lakers drew up a play for Kobe Bryant to win the game but his shot from near the sideline fell way short. Fortunately for the Lakers, Artest never gave up on the play, grabbing the loose ball and beating the clock with a short, off-balance bank shot that gave the Lakers a 103-101 victory in Game 5 at Staples Center.

“I thought Kobe got fouled on his shot, so I figured it was going to be short,” Artest said of the final play. “I just thought I’d throw my weight a little bit, and let my weight work for me.”

The Lakers now lead the 2010 Western Conference finals, 3-2, with a chance to close out the series in Game 6 in Phoenix.

“It’s amazing you go through all this stuff, all the preparation, and it comes down to fundamental things,” said Bryant. “They knock down a 3-pointer because we didn’t box out, and they wound up losing a game because they didn’t box out. Little things like that are the difference between winning big playoff games and losing them.”

Bryant took the inbounds pass from Lamar Odom, but when he turned to shoot Steve Nash and Grant Hill converged on him and didn’t allow him to get a clean look at the basket.

“I felt I had a great look, but Grant Hill stuck his hand in there at the last second and forced me to double pump,” Bryant said. “Other than that I was gonna shoot over Steve. Once I release the ball I saw Ron sneaking in, and I was just hoping he got it off in time.”

It was easily Artest’s biggest play as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers and it almost didn’t happen because Phil Jackson contemplated about taking him out of the game for taking an ill-advised 3-pointer with under a minute left in the fourth quarter and Lakers ahead by three. “I’ll have a substitute to get you next time, that’s what I said,” Jackson joked. “I don’t know why I left him in the game. I questioned it myself when I put him out there. But there he was made the key play.”

Artest was 1-for-9 from the field prior to the last play, but found redemption by being at the right place at the right time.

“It was a great moment,” said Lakers guard Derek Fisher, who has had his share of game-winning shots during his career. “We’re very happy for Ron because Ron has been asked to sacrifice a lot with his game to really try to fit in on what we do things. He has sacrificed a lot to get to where we’re trying to go. And that’s why we were so happy for him.”

The Lakers led for much of the game but had to withstand a furious Suns fourth-quarter rally led by Nash, who scored 29 points.

“We just didn’t quite finish the play,” said Suns coach Alvin Gentry. “They made a good play. You gotta give Ron Artest credit. He ran down the ball and put it in the basket.”

Gentry continued: “The only thing negative is the way we approached the game a little bit. We weren’t quite as aggressive and they got into us defensively and we struggled a little bit getting into our offense. But on the defensive side of the ball we did great. We’ve now gotten them down from 58 percent to 41 percent. They keep talking about the zone, and our zone has been fine.”

Artest’s last-second shot was the second game-winning putback for the Lakers in the 2010 playoffs. Pau Gasol made a similar play in the first round when he followed up Bryant’s miss to win Game 6 in Oklahoma City.

“It was a crazy game. It had a bit of everything,” Nash said. “We found a way to tie it up and we lost on a last-second putback. Just when you thought everything was OK, and we’re going into overtime, we lose. But that’s life. We take a lot of positives from tonight and we gotta home and play as well as we did in games 3 and 4.

“Everything’s OK. We came back obviously with a great effort,” added Nash. “Maybe we deserved this game, maybe we didn’t. We lost and they held homecourt. We’ll go back home and we’ll do the same, and we’ll come back here for Game 7.”

Joel Huerto is the editor and publisher of OneManFastBreak.net, an online journal for basketball fans around the world and a proud partner of SportsFanLive.com. To read more about the NBA playoffs, visit OneManFastBreak.net.

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Suns center Amare Stoudemire is sandwiched by 7-footers Pau Gasol (left) and Andrew Bynum. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

When you pick on the biggest bully on the block, you better be prepared to back up your talk.

Phoenix Suns center Amare Stoudemire first picked on Lakers forward Lamar Odom, dismissing his impact in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals saying that Odom got “lucky” despite scoring 19 points and grabbing 19 rebounds. Then Stoudemire turned his attention to Lakers centers Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, saying he used to dominate Gasol when the 7-foot Spaniard played for the Memphis Grizzlies.

“It was total domination,” Stoudemire told The Arizona Republic of his 2005 first-round playoff matchup with Gasol. “But now he has a little brother (Bynum) with him so now he’s a little more confident because he’s got someone to help him in the post.”

Though Odom, Bynum and Gasol didn’t respond publicly to Stoudemire’s statements, they did their talking on the court as they took turns in punishing Stoudemire in the low post, combining for 59 points and 27 rebounds in the Lakers’ 124-112 destruction of the Suns in Game 2.

“Well, what can you say. We’re just having a hard time slowing them down,” said Suns coach Alvin Gentry, whose team is averaging 109 points and shooting almost 50% from the field in the series but still find themselves down 0-2.

“We played well offensively, but every time we make an adjustment to slow them down they go somewhere else. You do a great job on Kobe [Bryant], which I thought we did, they to go to Pau. We go double team Pau and there’s Lamar; we get it out of Lamar’s hands and Jordan Farmar makes shots. They are the reason they’re the world champs.”

After the Suns tied the game at 90 after three quarters, the Lakers went back to their low post attack, which meant a whole lot of Gasol and that’s when the game turned into a rout.

Gasol scored 14 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter and made 11 of 19 shots for the game.

He took advantage of Stoudemire’s inattentiveness on defense. On one play, Stoudemire totally misplayed a pick-and-roll situation and allowed Gasol to slip in for an easy layup. On another play, Stoudemire completely lost Gasol in a crowd and Bryant was able to spot him for another uncontested layup under the basket. And when he’s not embarrassing Stoudemire on pick-and-rolls, Gasol punished him on simple isolations on the low block.

“We had to try to play him straight up, and when we played him straight up Pau had some success,” Gentry said. “The one time we tried to double he turned it over, the next time we doubled he found the open guy and the guy makes a three. You really do have to pick your poison.”

Gentry added: “We just have to take a look at the tape tonight, and maybe we’ll decide we let Kobe score 80 and try to guard the other guys.”

Bryant, who lit up the Suns for 40 points in Game 1, scored just 21 points but had a team-high 13 assists.

The Lakers are making nearly 58% of their shots from the field and averaging 126 points through the first two games in the series. They enjoyed another big advantage in points in the paint (54-46) and, thanks to another stellar game by Odom (17 points, 11 rebounds) and timely contribution from Farmar (11 points), the Lakers bench outplayed the Suns bench for a second time.

Though his team initially didn’t target Stoudemire on the low block, Lakers coach Phil Jackson said it became a top priority once the Suns’ All-Star center got into foul trouble.

“He’s the initiator of their screen-and-roll offense because of what he can do off his roll activity,” Jackson explained. “We took the ball down in the low post because he had five fouls and we knew it would tough for him to play defense at that time.”

This series can’t end soon enough for Stoudemire, who finished Game 2 with 18 points and six rebounds. The Lakers are just too big, too strong and too talented for the Suns, who will need a lot of luck just to win a game in this series.

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The Phoenix Suns made two very powerful statements in Game 2 of their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series against the San Antonio Spurs.

First, the Suns wore their “Los Suns” jerseys on Cinco de Mayo to show their support for the Hispanic community of Arizona, a strong political message from a NBA franchise that is in the middle of a controversial immigration issue.

Second, after winning Game 2, 110-102, the Suns jumped to a 2-0 series lead and sent a loud message to the Spurs – a team that has eliminated the Suns four times in five years – that they are determined to break the San Antonio spell and finally win a series against their playoff nemesis.

The first message was a public display of discontent with Arizona’s immigration bill, while the other was more unspoken. Either way, both were delivered with force and the Suns are not backing down from either stance.

In late April, the state of Arizona passed a sweeping immigration bill authorizing police officers to stop suspected illegal immigrants and demand proof of citizenship.

The law has sparked a national uproar, with politicians, pundits and citizens weighing in – including Suns All-Star and former two-time league MVP Steve Nash.

Steve Nash is defended by Tony Parker during Game 2 of the Suns-Spurs series. Nash scored 19 points and had six assists to lead Phoenix to a 2-0 series lead. (NBAE/GETTY IMAGES)

“I’ll speak for myself. Our team was proud to wear the jerseys because we feel a sense of pride in our Latino community,” said Steve Nash, who along with Suns owner Robert Sarver have publicly questioned the new immigration bill.

In a statement, Sarver said: “The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law. However intended, the result of passing the law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona’s already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them.”

It was Sarver’s idea to have his team wear the “Los Suns” jerseys for Game 2 and he got the blessing from the NBA and the Players’ Association, and the Suns players were willing participants.

“Our Latino community is what makes this state great because it gives us a diversity and a lifestyle that is great. It’s important that we stand up sometimes for what we believe in,” Nash told reporters during a postgame news conference. “I don’t want to alienate anybody. Those people that disagree with me is fine. Discourse is what democracy is made on, and I think that it’s not something [people] should take personally.

“My beliefs, our team stood up for that part of our community because I think that’s the one targeted by this side of this bill that could open the door to racial profiling and racism. And I’m talking primarily about American citizens who are Latino. Now their quality of life and freedoms could change because of this bill. I think it also puts undo pressure on police officers, and unrealistic expectations.”

Nash added: “Having said that, the bill is continually changing and it seems it will continue to change. So, it’s impossible to have a stance. I’m proud of our owner for taking a stand, but we are not out there to alienate. We all want this to be about loving of our community. Regardless if people agree with us or not, we have love for everybody out there. We just like to get to a consensus that everyone can live with and it isn’t a possible infringement on human rights.”

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