by a strong effort by Jermaine O'Neal against Howard, which the Lakers immediately answered with a 12-0 run of their own to prevent the Suns from getting too far ahead. But when the Lakers hit them with that second haymaker late in the third and early in the fourth, the Suns just couldn't find that next gear to make this a game again. That should come as no surprise as it has become a common theme in a season in which the Suns have trailed by double digits in nine of their first 10 games. We have learned that there is no quit in this team and that for stretches in a game the Suns will outwork a team to fight their way back into the contest. Occasionally they will have enough in the tank to fight all the way back (see Cleveland), but more often than not the more talented team will make that one last spurt to finish Phoenix off. Through the better part of three quarters the Suns were doing all they could to pull the upset by fighting the Lakers to loose balls and enjoying one of their better shooting nights of the campaign, but when Kobe decided it was winning time by scoring six quick ones to end the third quarter the Suns had no counter strike. In the last game before Mike D'Antoni sits in the head chair for the Lakers, perhaps it was fitting that the first quarter featured vintage SSOL ball, a