PHOENIX -- Most of Steve Nash's memories of Dallas are fond. But not all of them.
"I was ... well, I wouldn't say maligned in my first year there, but I was booed at home in my second year," said the Canadian point guard, who spent the first two years of his pro career with the Phoenix Suns, then played six seasons with the Dallas Mavericks before returning to Phoenix last summer.
"That was a pretty amazing place to be in your career, to be booed at home as a young player, someone who is just trying to figure out what they can be," Nash recalled. "In some ways, it was great for me because it motivated me and taught me a lot about pro sports: Keep fighting and don't take things so seriously."
One game in particular stands out in Nash's mind.
"Nelly (former Mavs coach Don Nelson) didn't start me in the second half after the boo-fest," Nash said. "When he subbed me in, the place all booed again. And I look over at my brother and he is laughing. It speaks volumes about my brother, but also about reality."
A splash of reality hit the Suns in the face on Wednesday -- in one case, quite literally -- as they lost 108-106 to the Mavericks. This NBA second-round playoff series is tied at a game apiece, with Game 3 on tap tonight in Nash's old stomping grounds, Dallas.
The Suns will be without starting guard Joe Johnson, who left Game 2 after he landed hard on his head. The Mavs' Jerry Stackhouse was called for a flagrant foul on the play, and while replays showed a flagrant wasn't warranted, Johnson still was injured badly.
Johnson suffered a displaced fracture of the orbital bone over his left eye -- he was scheduled to have surgery yesterday morning -- and a concussion. How long he'll be out probably is about as clear as his vision right now, but he obviously won't play tonight.
The loss of Johnson makes the task even harder for the Suns, who head to Texas to take on a rejuvenated Mavericks squad that looked dreadful in Game 1, but showed impressive backbone in Game 2.
"We know what kind of team we have," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said.
"We believe we have the team to keep going in the playoffs. After the Houston series (the Mavericks needed seven gruelling games to beat the Rockets in Round 1), we still were playing grind-it-out basketball when we walked in the door."
Let's be honest here. Nash, the reigning NBA most valuable player, wants to beat Cuban. And Cuban wants to beat Nash. It's human nature.
Nash was a free agent last summer and was not seriously pursued by Cuban.
After Nash signed a five-year, $65-million US contract with the Suns, the relationship between Nash and Cuban hit a big bump when Cuban predicted in an internet blog that Nash would break down physically before the end of his new pact.
"I was disappointed in some of the things that were said after, but I never really questioned (Cuban's) decision," Nash said. "Me coming to (the Suns) is the only way I'd be an MVP, I think. But Dallas added some pretty darn good players after I left."
We got a window into Cuban's mindset back in early February, when the Mavericks played the Raptors in Toronto. When we mentioned that the Mavs had been playing well, Cuban didn't want to hear it. "We've had a lot of 50-win seasons that really didn't get us anything," he said at the time.
In other words, the Nash-era Mavs had their successes, but Cuban felt they had reached their apex.
So, Cuban let Nash go and used the cash savings to acquire centre Erick Dampier.
Cuban said the other day he hopes he and Nash still are good enough friends that Cuban will be invited to whatever party Nash has this summer when he takes the MVP trophy back to his home town of Victoria, B.C.
We're not sure if Cuban should be checking his mailbox. Regardless of how fond Nash is of Dallas, the outcome of this series may impact his magnanimous mood.
