They say that a playoff series doesn’t begin until a team wins on the road.  The 2010 Western Conference Finals proves that statement couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

Behind their newly unleashed zone defense and their very capable reserve unit, the Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angeles Lakers 115-106, and tied the series at 2 games apiece.

The Suns did many things right tonight:

Bench Play – Tonight’s Suns’ victory starts and ends with their productive bench.  The Phoenix reserves outscored the Lakers’ reserves 54-20.  And while much isn’t expected from L.A. bench, the Suns bench was able to push Phoenix into a comfortable lead with the Lakers’ starters on the floor. 

Channing Frye got his game going, connecting on four treys in Game 4.

Kudos to Alvin Gentry for not feeling unnecessarily compelled to bring their starters back into the game to stroke their egos.  The home team’s bench played the first nine minutes of the fourth quarter, leaving Phoenix with a sizable margin that was easily maintained through the end of the contest.

Every player that made it on the floor scored.  In fact, no Suns player who got minutes scored less than 6 points.  That’s what you call a total team effort.

Zone Defense – After looking like they had no chance of stopping Los Angeles, the Suns held their foes under 110 points for the second consecutive games.  110 points seems like a defense with a lot of pores, but Phoenix is easily able to score that amount themselves – so holding L.A. to that number of points gives them a good chance of winning.

As we saw in Game 3, Phoenix’s weapon of choice was the zone defense.  Although they weren’t exactly able to shut down Kobe Bryant (38 points on 15-22 FG, 6-9 3′s, 10 assists, 7 rebounds), they didn’t let him take over the game in its critical moments of the fourth quarter.  The Suns kept two defenders in Bryant’s vicinity, and was focused on making other Lakers make plays.  No other Lakers were able to step up to the level that L.A. needed to provide a complement to Bryant. 

Rebounding- The undersized Suns found a way to corral 18 offensive rebounds.  The Lakers only had 13.  Normally, a zone defense provides a lot of offensive rebounding opportunities.  But the Lakers looked so baffled that they allowed their size to be totally negated. 

What will Game 5 look like?

The Black Mamba needed some help from his teammates tonight.

Well, we’ve seen bench play become key in this series.  Lamar Odom plays exceptional at home in Games 1 and 2.  The Phoenix bench picks their game up tremendously in Games 3 and 4.  This is not surprising because reserves traditionally feed off of the energy of the crowd.

So, in Game 5, the benches will once again set the tone.

Phoenix has to get Goran Dragic, Leandro Barbosa and the rest of the bench mob into the game early in Game 5.  Dragic, when aggressive, has put opposing point guards on skates.  Just ask George Hill and, now, Derek Fisher.  Barbosa needs minutes to get into a rhythm.  But when he’s able to get it going, he’s virtually unstoppable because his moves are so lightning quick.

The Lakers would like to get some help from Odom, but more importantly, they need to get back to controlling the interior.  The first two games of the series showed what the Lakers can do when they focus on using their size.  They’ll have to avoid the temptation of settling for shots that they don’t want.  Los Angeles has thrown up 60 triples in the last two games.  That is not their game.  They are going to have to stay aggressive against the Suns’ zone.

Like I said, no road victories yet.  But even so, Game 5 in Los Angeles is certainly must-see TV.