Phoenix Keeps It Fast and Easy

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — No matter what Memphis Coach Mike Fratello tried and how testy Jason Williams got with a reporter afterward, the Phoenix Suns showed no signs of slowing in the NBA playoffs.

Fratello told Bonzi Wells that he wouldn’t be playing and not to bother sitting on the bench, but that didn’t prevent Joe Johnson from scoring 25 points as the Suns swept the Grizzlies, 123-115, Sunday to advance to the Western Conference semifinals for the first time since 2000.

Phoenix, which ran through the regular season with the league’s best record, can rest and wait for the winner of the Dallas-Houston first-round series.

“We know it is important to prove this to ourselves,” Sun guard Steve Nash, who had 24 points and nine assists, said of winning with a run-and-gun style. “We do better with an underdog attitude.”

It’s the first sweep by the Suns in a best-of-seven series and their first since the 1995 playoffs when they eliminated Portland, 3-0, in a best-of-five opening round.

Pau Gasol matched his playoff-best with 28 points to lead the Grizzlies, who extended their NBA record to eight consecutive playoff losses. They were swept last season by San Antonio.

Fratello thought his decision to bench Wells for being disruptive worked, although Williams, who scored 20 points, appeared to be in solidarity with his fellow guard as he wore a blue sweatband around his left biceps with Wells’ No. 6 on it.

Said Fratello: “I thought I saw a genuine, for the first time in a long time, a genuine pull for each other. If you’re going to go out, you want to go out swinging, and I thought the guys did that.”

After the game, Williams’ anger was pointed in another direction. Upset by the way he was quoted in a Memphis newspaper column by the Commercial Appeal’s Geoff Calkins, Williams grabbed a pen out of the writer’s hand and screamed in the reporter’s ear as Calkins tried talking to other Grizzlies.

“You can talk to TNT, but don’t answer this [reporter’s] questions,” Williams said. “I’m not letting him write anything. I didn’t do anything. I just took his pen.”