<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">For the longest time, Captain Canada went to sleep, perhaps even lulled there by the love he always receives from the Raptors crowd. "Slow and old," Steve Nash said he felt like and 10 more minutes of that would have worked for everyone, thanks. Nash will always be welcome here, although he's going to be making enemies locally by waking up in time to throw not one or two but three jolts into the heart of the Raps ? and there was a lot of that heart shown in maybe the best game of the season, in terms of entertainment, this team has played. Final was 100-98 for Phoenix in a sizzling night of sports theatre, one that began, as it always does here, with a warm reception for Nash. That's how you know the customers in the Air Canada Centre are not Maple Leaf fans, the ones who always booed the Orrs, Howes, Hulls, etc., when they came to town. Speaking of welcomes, though, how about the welcome back Chris Bosh deserved? A month out of it and he's his old monster self again, bringing the team back again and again until that Nash guy stepped up. Why, if the Raptors had managed their timeouts differently and they had kept one until the final 3.8 seconds, who knows what they might have done, instead of watching Darrick Martin, who was otherwise good again, clank a desperation heave off the top of the backboard to send everyone groaning their way home. Twice in a rather amazing fourth quarter, the Raps took a one-point lead and twice Nash came down the floor, calmly and coolly, and nailed a three-pointer. "It's just competing," Nash said later. "They take the lead and you don't want to go back and watch as they run you out of the gym. You just try to come back and make a shot to keep your team in the game." Like all the great ones, he makes it sound simple and easy. In the waning seconds, he expertly timed a lean into Bosh to produce three free throws ? naturally, he buried them all ? and after Andrea Bargnani was whistled for a charge, Nash dribbled into just enough open space to hoist up a deuce that fell for the final breathing room. "It was a struggle for me, for sure, tonight," Nash said. "Physically, I didn't feel great and I didn't play great, but my teammates did a great job of sticking with it and I just tried to be there in the fourth quarter. "I finally got a little bit loose after feeling slow and old for three quarters and then I had a little bit of a rebirth. Many times in this league you don't feel great or play great, but if you mentally stick with it and try to enjoy the tough moments and make the most of them, anything can happen."</div> Source
