A lot of people out there say that STEVE NASH is a better all-around team player than KOBE BRYANT, thus making him a more valuable commodity to his respective team.

A lot of people who have jumped the Phoenix bandwagon will claim that the Suns will win it all this year because no one can stop their offense. Not gonna happen. Why? Because the Suns don't know how to stop anybody. And what more when it comes to clutch time in the playoffs and the Spurs or Mavs or Rockets or Pistons or Heat have possession of the ball with 20 seconds left, score tied at 95, and it's the deciding game of the series?

Will Nash be able to prevent Billups from making a shot or will Billups post Nash down low and earn a trip to the foul line? Will Raja be able to block T-Mac's jump shot when it counts or will McGrady get to the foul line? How will Stoudamire stop Duncan down low when it counts knowing that Duncan gets all the calls in the playoffs? And how does Marion prevent someone like Dirk or Josh Howard from scoring when you won't know if they will put it on the floor or pull up for a 15-footer?

The Suns downfall will be their inability to have meaningful possessions down the stretch because of their style of play. Even the Showtime Lakers couldn't outscore everybody 120-95 every game of the playoffs. They still had to bang with everybody and play TOUGH defense. The Suns personnel simply doesn't have TOUGH guys who like to bang with the bigs.

Basketball purists will say that DEFENSE wins championships and if one were to look at the history of NBA Finals opponents over the last 10 years, one will see that both teams that participated in the Finals were coached by defensive minded coaches.

I can totally see why because there are so many talented scorers in each team all over the league that you need to play 48 minutes of grind-it-out, tough-minded defense in order to succeed in the playoffs.

And for all the people who say KOBE is a selfish ball-hog and that he'll never win. Allow me to shed some light on something you probably didn't know until TNT revealed this amazing stat when the LAKERS played the CAVS last night.

Last year, the Lakers were 18-9 when Kobe scored over 40 and 6-2 this year when he score 40+. When he doesn't score less than 40, the Lakers were barely above .500 last year and are right around .500 this year. So what does that tell you?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it's obvious Kobe doesn't have the help. He has to do it all for the Lakers to stay competitive- lead, score, assist, get to the line, defend the other team's top scorer, etc - just like D-Wade does it all for Miami.

And isn't it a mild surprise that all of a sudden the Heat are winning now that Shaq is back? You give Kobe a KG or a Gasol to play with and I guarantee the Lakers win it all.

Nash has two other All-Stars alongside him plus two more Olympians and yet the SUNS can't come close to playing .500 against the best teams in the NBA.

Yes, Nash is valuable to his team as evidenced by the Suns' recent slide without him and he is a legitimate MVP candidate, but the major difference why the LAKERS have a better shot at a championship than PHOENIX does is because Kobe is not only becoming a greater team player than he's ever been but he's also an all-league defender (something Nash will never be) and he's as clutch as they come.

When the game's on the line, Smush Parker can score on Nash. Raja Bell will get the ball ripped by KOBE.

So SUNS fans, c'mon and bring the heat baby!!