This MVP Also Leads In Modesty

PHOENIX

Steve Nash never dreamed of being the NBA's most valuable player. He never even dreamed basketball dreams until he was in his teens. There's a lot of stuff ahead of basketball when you grow up in Victoria, B.C., like hockey, of course, and in the case of the Nash household, soccer. His father played professionally and his brother has played first division in England and for the Canadian national team. Nash was an attacking midfielder -- didn't even play basketball until he was 13, when his boys started hooping like mad, and he grew fascinated enough ultimately to pack away the soccer balls and hockey equipment.

Even then, he didn't dream of being MVP. He dreamed of playing in college, then after that of making it to the NBA, which for a guy who had one college scholarship offer amounted to pure fantasy. "Even after I was in the league I probably had three goals," Nash said Wednesday night in the bowels of the empty arena he had electrified for the previous two-plus hours. "I wanted to have a long career. I wanted to be a starter in the league. And I wanted to be an all-star." He was sitting third on the depth chart then, at best, seemingly always behind some combination of Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson and, for a spell, Sam Cassell. Talk about late blooming, Nash didn't even become a full-time starter until his fifth season in the league. The Suns, for whom Nash started his career, once traded him for Pat Garrity, Bubba Wells and Martin Muursepp . . . (oh, and a future first-round pick that became Shawn Marion).

So in his case, MVP does not equal Diva. "Somebody asked me after I won the award if when I woke up I felt like the MVP. It's just not my style. I've been an underdog all my life so I feel like I'm an underdog when I wake up every day. I get to work early and feel the need to prove myself every day. MVP, as amazing as it is, it has some distance from me right now."

Even now, he plays like he's trying to prove he's the best player in his city, in his province. There was no spotlight back then. But not now. He's playing too fabulously now. He's the best player in the best series of the playoffs, the biggest scorer, the best passer and, out of nowhere, a very good rebounder.

These are Nash's last four games: 23 points and 13 assists, 27 points and 17 assists, 48 points and five assists, and in the pivotal Game 5 here Wednesday night, 34 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists. In the five games played against his old team, Dallas, in this Western Conference semifinal, Nash is averaging 28.6 points and 12 assists while making 54.2 percent of his shots. In the four road games the Suns have played in the playoffs, going into Friday night's Game 6 in Dallas, Nash is shooting 65 percent. From the foul line in the series against the Mavericks, he's shooting 95 percent.

Dwyane Wade and Steve Nash have been the best players in the postseason, take your pick. So it was a little disconcerting at the end of Game 4 when Nash scored those 48 points only to have his team lose. It looked like Mavericks Coach Avery Johnson and his staff had solved the Suns. The recipe? Let Nash shoot all he wants because he wreaks more havoc when he's finding teammates for open three-pointers and helping Amare Stoudamire and Shawn Marion to get easy dunks that demoralize the Dallas defense and get the Mavs' big men in foul trouble.

Of course it was a sound strategy to try to keep a passer from passing. You want Joe Montana throwing it downfield or handing it off? "I am reluctant to take that many shots," Nash said after finding a better balance in Game 5. "The way I like to play is to get my teammates involved, see them having fun, get their energy level up. . . . But as one of the best shooters on the team, I have to take those shots when they're open."

You know what Mike D'Antoni, coach of the year, said to Nash between Games 4 and 5? Not much. "I think they know I know what I'm doing," Nash said, coming as close to a cocky public utterance as you'll ever hear, even though it was anything but. "I'm reluctant to take that many shots, but I think I know what's best in the long run. My teammates know that I'm trying to get them the ball."

Yes, both his new teammates and old teammates know it. The player most hurt by Nash's free agent defection to Phoenix has to be Dirk Nowitzki, probably his best friend in the Dallas years. Nowitzki is a 46.3 percent career shooter who without Nash dropping dimes on him is shooting 40.7 percent in the playoffs with way too many 5-for-19, 8-for-21, 4-for-14, 5-for-14 kind of nights.

The Mavericks let Nash walk, hoping to use the money to find some defense in the person of Erick Dampier. How painful would it be for the old Mavs, particularly Nowitzki and Michael Finley, to watch Nash advance to the conference finals as their expense? "It's old news, my Mavericks days, in some ways," Nash said, pausing. "But to have played 40 minutes against them every night for five games but go without saying a word to them . . . it's definitely kind of strange."

Nash stayed 20 minutes to talk with an out-of-town reporter, then signed autographs for those still hanging around America West Arena. Nobody mobbed him. There was no need for a bodyguard or handlers. Imagine Allen Iverson having that much postgame privacy. You can't, can you? Nash is still flying below the radar, relative to most great NBA players. Other than the addition of a wife and twin daughters, he appears to live his life as if he was still kicking soccer balls in Victoria. Quentin Richardson, the sweet-shooting swingman who came to Phoenix this offseason as well, said of Nash: "He wouldn't even tell people he won the MVP award. I've never seen anybody that good that humble. He deflects it all.

"But he's got a fire in him, trust me. He hits those runners in the lane, takes jump hooks over Dirk. Steve is fearless. He's injured, too. Why do you think he's sitting in that cold tub full of ice for so long?"

The ice water seemed to have seeped into his veins in these playoffs. The MVP award, the friendship with his former teammates, the strategy to let him shoot as much as he wants -- all of it calls too much attention to him for Steve Nash's comfort level. The question was asked of him after Game 5, "How do you top 48 points followed by a triple-double?" Nash wasted no time answering, as if he was waiting on the question like a slow, tantalizing curveball. "Win the series," he said. Now there's something, winning, he has dreamed of no matter the sport, no matter what was at stake.