The Los Angeles Lakers point guard shows what the team has been missing in only his second game back from a non displaced fracture in the left fibula….
When the Los Angeles Lakers visited the Madison Square Garden nearly two weeks back, they were ruthlessly brushed aside by Carmelo Anthony and company.
That was also the first game in which Mike D’Antoni led his new team against the old one, and he was miffed by the Lakers performance post game.
At that time, the Lakers were in a midst of a dreaded stretch during which everything was going haywire. The team was struggling to find its niche without a genuine playmaker; Kobe Bryant had to carry all the scoring burden, and
the return of Steve Nash was still unsure.
However on Tuesday, things changed drastically. And much of that was courtesy of some breath taking clutch play by Nash, who was playing in just his second game after a 24 game layoff due to a left fibula fracture. The point guard
was the main push behind a late Lakers surge that sealed the win for the hosts and squared the two game season series at one all.
Nash either scored or created 12 of the last 15 points, and most importantly ensured that the bigs got rolling. Mike D’Antoni, who has been maintaining that the Lakers will be a completely different side once Nash returns to the
fold, was also redeemed and showered praise on Nash;
"A point guard like him who has that respect, a lot of it is the credibility of doing it for a lot of years," D'Antoni said after the Lakers beat the Knicks 100-94 and topped the 50 percent record. "He just puts everything in perspective
and calms everybody down and gives you a chance to win every night. He keeps your energy up on defense because you're not fighting yourself on the other end and you're not being demoralized by things happening there. Everybody's getting the ball, there's a
flow, and it feeds and it builds. It's a like a little snowball that keeps getting bigger."
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