Bell Gets In the Last Shot

PHOENIX â€”  The series ended as it began, with elbows and angry glares, followed by one last parting shot from Raja Bell.

The Lakers and Phoenix Suns aren’t known for physical basketball, but their series had just about everything, right up to the final game. Kobe Bryant picked up another hard foul against Bell, elbowing him in the cheek while trying to break free of him in the second quarter. Bell, however, delivered the final blow to Bryant after the Suns’ runaway 121-90 victory.

“Tell him it was a great series,� Bell said. “But now we’ve got bigger fish to fry.�

Last month, after Bryant and Bell had a testy regular-season game, Bryant said he “had bigger fish to fry� when asked if he was worried about Bell.

Bryant, after scoring only one point in the second half Saturday, said he didn’t think of Bell as being a great stopper.

“You know what? It’s funny because I really don’t think of him defensively,� Bryant said. “I really don’t. It’s not like I go up against Bruce Bowen or [Ron] Artest, something like that, that really makes you think about what you’re doing out there.�

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The Lakers started the series by watching clips of “Inside Man� during game film to emphasize the need to pound the ball down low.

The series ended with a different theme.

“I am going to steal a line from Disney and say it’s a small world after all,� Sun Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I guess small guys can play.�

The Laker inside men struggled in Game 7. Kwame Brown and Lamar Odom combined for 20 points on seven-for-24 shooting.

“Our guys were fumbling the ball and not catching the ball and not shooting the ball in the lane with that kind of decisiveness that had made us good,� Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “Our inside game with Kwame and Lamar was limited in this game, and I think that changed it up a lot.�

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As a player, Jackson was on a New York Knick team that won Game 7 on the road against Boston in the 1973 Eastern Conference finals, the first time the Celtics ever lost a Game 7.

Jackson did not, however, tell the Lakers about that experience for a very simple reason.

“Most of them weren’t born when that happened,� he said.

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Steve Nash will be presented the league’s most-valuable-player award this morning at a news conference at US Airways Center. Nash averaged 22.1 points and 11.3 assists in the series. Bryant averaged 27.9 points and 5.5 assists.... The Suns became the third NBA team to win a playoff series after losing three consecutive games in the series.