The points wouldn't come early for the Phoenix Suns, the NBA's best regular-season team in 2004-05 and one that likely improved its personnel in the offseason.
But the Suns figured if they kept to their game, things would improve against a Utah Jazz team that built a 10-point lead and regularly pulled away from ties in the first three quarters Saturday night at the Delta Center.
"It's not stress-free to be down early and to not score for the first four minutes or whatever," said Suns guard Steve Nash, the reigning NBA MVP, following Phoenix's come-from-behind 97-88 victory that handed the Jazz their first loss of the young season.
"I think we realized we have a chance to still be in the game if we kept fighting and didn't give anything away and didn't hang our heads," Nash added.
A team that went to the Western Conference Finals, losing to the eventual NBA-champion San Antonio Spurs, has a certain inner peace, even when things aren't going their best.
"At times, we've just got to play posssession by possession," said Shawn Marion, "but sometimes, yeah, definitely . . . you've got to have that confidence that you can pull the game out, and we did that."
Even two-year man Boris Diaw, the versatile 6-foot-8 Frenchman acquired in trade from Atlanta in mid-August, has learned quickly the way of winning teams. "We know we can go from playing bad to playing great," he said. "We knew that we could come back."
Diaw and the Suns' bench, especially Leandro Barbosa and Eddie House, were big factors in the Suns' victory. They have quickly developed chemistry, said Suns' coach Mike D'Antoni, "and have playedwell every time."
Diaw scored 14 and had six assists and three blocked shots, while Barbosa hit a couple 3-pointers and totaled nine with House adding seven.
"Awesome," Nash called them. "The second unit is doing a huge job for us, and that's so important right now. The games aren't really coming as easy as they did for us last year."
"The first quarter, the stars couldn't get going," said Marion, "but our bench came in and pushed it on the court and got us where we needed to be.
"Our bench came in and provided the energy we needed and got us over the hump, and we closed it out. You'got to have confidence to win," Marion added.
Phoenix didn't have a great shooting night, 43 percent, but the Suns clamped down on defense, forcing 23 Jazz turnovers worth 40 points. They had 10 steals and seven blocked shots to offset Utah's 55-34 rebound advantage.
"This is a great learning experience for us," said Marion, who led all scorers with 20 points and got things going for himself with 10 third-quarter points, getting some fire-up baskets on lob passes early in the second half.
"It's a big sign of our character. We grinded this one out all night. It was a tough one," said Marion.
"They handed it to us pretty good in the first half," agreed Nash. "We realized it wasn't one of those nights where it was going to come easy for us, that we were going to have to scrap for it. We didn't get too down. That's why we won the game."
E-mail: lham@desnews.com