Let the crepe hangers belabor the Suns’ unshielded playdates with the indiscriminately terminal Lakers. As usual, I prefer to accentuate the affirmative by identifying an intangible in Game 2.
With 6:18 left in the first quarter, L.A. up 15-13, Alvin Gentry inserted Channing Frye for Robin Lopez. Almost immediately, Frye threw a lazy cross-court pass that was picked off by Derek Fisher, who dashed downcourt with only Steve Nash to beat, a drive Fisher failed to hit.
Trailing the play, Frye followed Fisher under the basket and over the endline rather than secure the miss. “Lucky” Lamar Odom laid it up friction-free. Already on his fee, Gentry signaled for a time out.
I have no idea what was said in the huddle. I do know how rattled Frye looked. He was 1-for-8 from the field in Game 1 and, in a mere 22 seconds, his quivering confidence had dipped perceptibly.
Many, many coaches would’ve fricasseed Frye, made him feel even worse than he did. Gentry took the opposite approach; he diagrammed a play for him.
Regrettably, the story doesn’t have a happy ending. Frye’s 3-point try went in and out. Moreover, he misfired four additional times before Gentry had seen enough for the evening.
Nonetheless, because of the confidence and loyalty Gentry showed Frye, I’m positive there are plenty of happy endings on tap.
From eyeballing Kobe in the playoffs, column contributor Ricky St. Jean underlines, “surely LeBron must see there are two elements he must add to his repertoire — a mid-range pull-up (no easier shot and you eradicate the inconsistent charge/block call outside the paint from the refs’ inventory) and a post-up presence.”
LeBron might be the fastest, strongest and highest jumping player ever to lace ‘em up, matched by supernatural skills and feel for the game. Detracting from all that is a predilection to source the spectacular — chase downs, air raids, outside-the-park triples — for SportsCenter’s dead ball audience.
With all due respect, lest LeBron lower the boom on me the way he did on Mike Brown — branding his offense sterile and overly controlling — I suggest he reprogram his remote and, while he’s at it, delete prancing and incessant trash talking to opposing benches.
The idea should be to score as friction-free and straightforward as possible. Swaggering prodigies normally don’t learn that until they lose a brass ring more than once they felt for sure they had a grip on, or are forced to think the game more due to an injury or age. I suspect LeBron now has caught on.
* Sixers starting backcourt next season: Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner. That vision and $3.5 million per for four years got Doug Collins excited enough to cut thousands, if not millions, of viewers a humongous break and leave the business.
Word has it, 76ers president Ed Stefanski, palming a stopwatch, told Collins during the final interview, “If you can stop talking for two minutes straight the job is yours.” That and Collins had to be willing to enroll in a Pilates class. Any hope Collins would take Charles Barkley and/or Kenny Smith with him was shattered when he announced Brian James, Michael Curry and Aaron McKie as his assistants. Kevin Harlan, I’m told, will continue to be Collins’ publicity man on TNT’s air.
I’m going global in my appeal to teams to give Jeff Van Gundy a gig, at once. If not, what’s the chances of him being hired as the stunt man for the Six Flags dude?
* It’s official: When the referee assignments were sent out for the respective conference finals, Joe DeRosa received one — Game 2, Boston-Orlando — and earned a “one-game suspension without pay” for tossing a ball at a heckling, courtside fan. All the remaining games — one-through-four — were given to his colleagues.
So, we know for a fact DeRosa is not scheduled to work Games 3 or 4 of Phoenix-Los Angeles. Meaning, the refs’ bosses — Joel Litvin, Ron Johnson and Bernie Fryer — all hope (DeRosa, too) there will be a Game 5 in the West so they can assign it to the 18-year veteran and then take it back in order to be in compliance with his “sentence.”
Should there be a sweep in the West, might the league bring back DeRosa for either Game 6 or 7 in the East? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter, anyway, I’m inclined to believe, because it would simply assign the job and then take it back. Regardless of the scenario, there has been no mention of how much money DeRosa will lose because, again, refs get paid by the round, not the game. Where is Mandrake the Magician when you need him?
FYI: Any injured referee who blew the whistle in last season’s playoffs gets a full share of this season’s pot. For instance, Steve Javie — whose bone-on-bone knee problem kept him sidelined almost all year and may well end his career— worked through The Finals in ‘09, thus will bank a fat paycheck (75G or so) from all four rounds in 2010. Same goes for Mark Wunderlich (knee).
* Between us, Avery Johnson’s angling for both the coaching and GM positions had nothing to do with the Hornets deciding against him. The two leading candidates — Monty Williams and Tom Thibodeau — just made more of an impression. I’d heard George Shinn’s sale of the team to Gary Chouest was on delay because of an unwillingness to assume existing debt, but I’m told that’s untrue. A deal is expected to be solidified soon.
* NBA mothers gone wild: Carrie Mae Stoudemire, 54, again was arrested last week. She was stopped at 3:25 p.m. after her Lincoln Navigator was straddling two lanes and going 60 mph, according to the Scottsdale police report. Her eyes were “watery and glassy,” the officer claimed.
No word yet on whether Delonte West was in the passenger’s seat.
peter.vecsey@nypost.com