PHOENIX – Amar’e Stoudemire(notes) walked out of US Airways Center sporting a pair of black-rim glasses and a large bandage above his nose. The former was a fashion statement, the latter his latest battle scar. Once again, Stoudemire had pushed himself into the spotlight in these Western Conference finals. This time, however, he did it not with his mouth, but his game.

Stoudemire extended the Phoenix Suns’ season another game and a couple days – and maybe even made the West finals worth watching – after totaling 42 points and 11 rebounds on Sunday in a 118-109 victory that narrowed the Los Angeles Lakers’ lead in the series to 2-1. Though Stoudemire had struggled in the first two games, not all of the Lakers were surprised by his breakout performance.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Kobe Bryant said. “He’s a great player. He’s had a couple tough games. He wasn’t going to come out here and roll over. I saw this coming.”

That likely made it even more difficult for the Lakers to stomach. Stoudemire had weathered considerable criticism in the three days leading into Game 3. He opened the series with just three rebounds in Game 1, then dismissed Lamar Odom’s(notes) 19-point, 19-board performance by calling it lucky. After another flat effort in Game 2, Stoudemire told Yahoo! Sports he might not re-sign with the Suns this summer even if they offer him a max contract.

Somehow, Stoudemire shook off the criticism and set the tone for the Suns’ biggest game of the season by attacking the Lakers from the opening tip to the final buzzer.

“Everybody has the right to have their opinions,” Stoudemire said. “… But from that standpoint, you can never question my determination, my focus, my dedication. That’s one of the reasons why I persevered through injuries and continue to try to improve every single summer. My dedication to the game is at an all-time high.”

Stoudemire’s performance noticeably picked up this season after the Suns again listened to trade offers for him, and Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry says his All-Star forward plays his best in the eye of the storm.

“I knew that Amar’e would respond,” Gentry said. “He’s a competitor. He knows that he didn’t play well in L.A. And as we said, when we got back here, the only thing we were looking at, we have to win one game. We had to win one game.”

Stoudemire averaged just 4.5 rebounds in the first two games of the series while complaining about the Lakers’ size – despite the fact that he stands at 6-foot-10 and 249 pounds himself. Instead of trying to battle with Pau Gasol(notes) and Andrew Bynum(notes) in the post in Game 3, Stoudemire was aggressive from the start, attacking them off the dribble. The result? He made 18 trips to the free-throw line.

Just as important, Stoudemire also grabbed 11 rebounds. His aggressiveness kept the Lakers’ big men in foul trouble for most of the game. The only success the Lakers had stopping Stoudemire came when Derek Fisher(notes) fouled him with a slap in the face, causing a gash atop his nose after his protective goggles cut him.

“Coach Alvin told me before the game he was going to me, coming to me a lot,” Stoudemire said. “And I was ready. I was totally ready. I wanted to pretty much attack the bigs a little bit and we got them in a little bit of foul trouble, which helped us.

“We were the aggressor right there and it showed.”

The question now is whether Stoudemire can maintain that bullish play. Even with the Suns’ Game 3 victory, there isn’t much optimism outside of Phoenix for them to win the series. But if Stoudemire continues to attack? If he plays as big as the Lakers’ frontline?

This might not be the last headline he makes.

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BOSTON – The most unforgettable play of these playoffs had come like these Boston Celtics: out of nowhere, out of Rajon Rondo’s(notes) wildest imagination.
The ball poked into the backcourt, and the Orlando Magic’s Jason Williams(notes) chased it past midcourt and all the way to the 3-point line. He had a good step, maybe two, on Rondo, and just when Williams reached down to pick up the ball, Rondo did something you’ve never seen on the basketball court – one more thing that makes you wonder what in the world can the Los Angeles Lakers do with him.

Rondo dove flat-out, thrust his arm between Williams’ legs, used his right hand to stop the ball and scooped it into his control. When he transferred the ball from his right to left hand, Rondo was still laying on the floor. Williams had watched all of this happen in a blur, and just stood there, blankly, wondering what the hell was happening around him. Rondo bounced to his feet, dribbled hard twice, crossed over the Magic guard and hit a twisting, spinning layup.

When you watch the play again and again in slow motion, take a long look at the fans on the baseline. Eyes wide, jaws dropped, those were the precise expressions. These are the playoffs of Rajon Rondo leaving everyone with a “What the %$&! did he just do?” moment.

“One of the toughest defensive plays I’ve seen in my career,” Ray Allen(notes) said. “It’s one thing to have the ball and make something miraculous happen, but not having the ball and making something miraculous happen?”

“The play of the playoffs,” Kevin Garnett(notes) said. “Pure hustle … pure I want-it-more-than-you. Shorty, he’s in a zone. He’s showing the world what he’s made of. The future is scary.”

“Maybe the most incredible play, beginning to end, that I’ve ever seen in the NBA,” Brian Scalabrine(notes) said.

“He’s from Mars,” “Big Baby” Glen Davis(notes) said.

Rondo’s the dimension that changes everything about these NBA Finals, about the Celtics’ chances of raising an 18th banner. After the Celtics were supposed to be too old and broken down, too thin on the bench, they’ve reached the cusp of the Finals making the case that they’re tougher than they were in 2008.

“This team is playing better in the playoffs than we played when we won the championship,” Paul Pierce(notes) said.

Garnett isn’t the best defensive player in the NBA now, and Pierce and Allen are less explosive on offense, but Rondo changes everything for Boston. The Celtics haven’t just beaten the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, they’ve pounded them into submission. LeBron James(notes) stopped playing in his series, and the Magic had so little belief they could get back into the East finals down 2-0 that they were willing to deliver one of the most unprofessional and pathetic playoff performances in a decade.

These Magic have an enormous payroll, tremendous veteran talent and they had won 14 straight games when the Celtics walked into their lives a week ago. Within two nights of basketball in Orlando, the Celtics had reduced the Magic from championship favorites to a lost, broken team too fractured, too scared to even compete.

“Our bodies were here, but our minds weren’t. Our hearts weren’t,” Dwight Howard(notes) said.

The Celtics were beating the Magic so unmercifully early in the third quarter that the Garden sell-out started chanting, “Beat L.A … Beat L.A.” It’s the sweetest springtime song in New England, and it’s resonating now, coming closer.

So, what would the Lakers do with Rondo? That has to be on everyone’s mind. Yes, Boston will find that defending Lamar Odom(notes) is a little more difficult than the one-dimensional Rashard Lewis(notes). Pau Gasol(notes) and Andrew Bynum(notes) are better two years later, and, yes, Kobe Bryant(notes) is still Kobe Bryant. Yet, what will the Lakers do with Rondo? He’s always been fearless, but he has such a mental toughness to him now. He has these Celtics believing so fervently in him that Garnett sat with him in the postgame news conference and Rondo’s once harshest critic gushed in pure testimonial form for him. These are the playoffs that have exposed so many unworthy and overhyped stars. LeBron and Howard have been the worst possible leaders in these playoffs, and Amar’e Stoudemire(notes) and Rashard Lewis have shown themselves to be unworthy of max contracts.

All these generational heirs to title aspirations, and Rondo is the rapidly rising star who has restored the Boston Celtics’ championship dreams. Two years ago, the Celtics had to go seven games to beat the Atlanta Hawks and Cavaliers, and now they’ve beaten the Miami Heat, Cleveland and Orlando in the most damning and decisive ways. Two years ago, Rondo was just a young point guard trapped between his abilities and ambitions, and now he’s become a force of nature for the Celtics.

That ball went bouncing down the floor, and Rondo chased it like a father would a child who had wobbled into the street. “I just wanted it,” Rondo said. The most unforgettable player of these playoffs had come on sheer will, and these Celtics have come so hard and fast out of nowhere, out of the wildest imagination of Rajon Rondo.

Beat L.A., they cried in the Boston Garden, and they all knew well the reason they can do it. They come with Rondo now. The Celtics come heavy.

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“We want Boston.”

The Los Angeles Lakers weren’t even done hanging another double-digit Western Conference finals victory on the Phoenix Suns when the chant started. Lakers fans were simply shouting what everyone around here had been discussing all day: Can we just fast-forward to the Celtics series?

The NBA’s historic rivals are once again staring each other down from 3,000 miles away. They’re playing a nightly game of can-you-top-this that’s threatening to make a mockery of their respective conference finals.

The Celtics went to Orlando and won both games, leaving the Magic reeling. The Lakers have knocked around Phoenix by an average of 15.5 points; the Suns stuck shaking their heads in frustration.

“I don’t really know what the answer is,” Grant Hill(notes) said.

Yes, anything can still happen, so you won’t hear a word from the actual Lakers about this series being over in the run-up to Game 3 Sunday in Phoenix. It’s the same with the Celtics discussing the Magic.

Whatever.

Just about everyone else watching these conference finals has already started looking ahead, calling into talk-radio shows to discuss the possibilities, arguing whether Boston and L.A. will lose a single game combined and checking what the NBA will do if both series end in five games or less (start the Finals in L.A. on June 1).

For the Staples crowd, it’s more exciting than having Hilary Swank appear on the kiss-cam. Or noting that record producer Polow da Don redefined the term fashionably late when he took his courtside seats with 4:10 left in the game.

He’ll show up on time for the Celtics. Or at least in the first half.

Phoenix just doesn’t look capable of beating L.A. in four of the next five games. The Magic not only would have to do the same to the Celtics, they’d have to win twice in Boston.

So here in California they dream of green. And in Boston Saturday, the “Beat L.A.” chants are sure to start early.

It’s not just the two best teams of these playoffs hurtling toward each other; it’s the two greatest franchises with a past intertwined in elbows, clothesline fouls and legend-making, game-winning shots.

The Celtics have a record 17 NBA championships. The Lakers are second with 15. The two franchises have met 11 times in the Finals with Boston winning nine of the series. The back and forth in the 1980s cemented this as a rivalry for the ages, but the 2008 Finals (Boston in 6) are the most relevant should the teams meet again.

It’s that one that the fans here can’t forget. Nor can Kobe Bryant(notes).

Bryant considers this Suns series as payback, and it’s evident in his fourth-quarter play. Phoenix knocked the Lakers out of the 2006 and 2007 playoffs, and when asked before the series if he recalled the series, Bryant snapped, “What do you think? You already know.”

When our Marc Spears asked Bryant earlier this week who he wanted to see in the Finals, Kobe just responded with a knowing smile. If losing to Phoenix in the early rounds with flawed teams still grinds him, then imagine what that Finals defeat to the Celtics meant?

And don’t think for a second Kobe has forgotten or forgiven Boston fans for throwing rocks at the Lakers’ team bus as it tried to pull away from the Garden after the final Game 6 loss.

Lakers icon Jerry West has gone on record recently saying Bryant is the best player in franchise history. That might be true, but the one hole in Bryant’s résumé is not beating the hated Celtics in a final. He’s 0-1. Magic went 2-1.

Meanwhile in Boston, there’s a sense that if not for last season’s injury to Kevin Garnett(notes), the Celtics might be going for a three-peat and L.A. would still be stuck on 14 titles.

The Celtics’ greatest pride is having the most championships. Boston will defend that mark with Bunker Hill intensity.

Bad blood, bad feelings and good times should be ahead, a most welcome development for a playoffs that’s been long on blowouts and low on fire.

Even before Game 2, Phil Jackson was asked about the need to rest Andrew Bynum’s(notes) tender knee so he’d be ready for the physical Celtics. Jackson looked away at the thought of discussing a possible Finals matchup already. Although, he did concede, “if we’re fortunate enough to advance, there will be bigger and more powerful centers ahead.”

Ron Artest(notes) was asked about the potential physical style of play in the Finals and tried to spin it into talking about “a tough team ahead of us, Phoenix … [we] respect our opponent.” He then admitted, “But I know what you’re saying.”

It’s up to Phoenix and Orlando to silence the potential superpower matchup talk. In this series the Suns keep setting when the game gets into the critical moments. The Lakers are scoring almost at will, averaging 126 points in the two games. “We haven’t found a way to slow them down,” Steve Nash(notes) acknowledged.

Then there is Bryant, who has made the winning plays when his team needed them while Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire(notes) seemed content to let the game slip away. When the Suns single-covered Kobe in Game 1, he had 40 points. When they threw some double-teams at him in Game 2, he had 13 assists.

Meanwhile, Lamar Odom(notes) followed up his “lucky” 19-point, 19-rebound performance in Game 1 with 17 points and 11 rebounds in Game 2.

“They’re almost impossible to beat when Lamar is that effective,” Suns forward Jared Dudley(notes) said.

Perhaps Boston will have an answer. We’ll see. What Lakers fans want, Lakers fans are almost assuredly going to get.