PHOENIX -- Alvin Gentry sat down at his postgame press conference and quickly scanned the box score to see how his team had just knocked off the Lakers.

It's hard to believe his eyes didn't pop out of his head when he saw Amare Stoudemire's stat line.

42 points, 11 rebounds.

It was the type of dominating performance the Suns had to have if they were going to climb back into this series -- a performance Gentry saw coming from the outset.

"He started the game with a lot of energy," the Phoenix head coach said. "We always say in this offense, the ball will find energy. And I thought he just did a good job of being aggressive and taking the ball to the basket and getting to the foul line. That's keeping them from getting to the foul line."

Stoudemire's renewed aggressiveness was the key to the game.

After a lackluster showing during the first two contests in Los Angeles, he pushed the ball hard at the hoop every chance he got. He was 14-for-18 from the line and seemed determined to enforce his will on the Lakers.

"Coach Alvin told me before the game that he was going to come to me," Stoudemire said. "Come to me a lot. And I was ready. I was totally ready. Being aggressive. I wanted to pretty much attack the bigs a little bit and we got them in a little bit of foul trouble which helped us. We were the aggressor right there, and it showed."

Gentry never lost faith that his big man would deliver.

"I knew that Amare would respond," Gentry said. "He's a competitor. He knows that he didn't play well in L.A. And as we said, when we got back here, the only thing that we were looking at -- we have to win one game. We had to win one game. And we did a good job tonight of doing that."

Stoudemire's offensive explosion may have surprised some fans after the way he's played over the past week, but it certainly wasn't a shock to the Lakers.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Lakers guard Kobe Bryant asked. "He's a great player. He's had a couple of tough games. I mean, he wasn't going to come out here and roll over. I saw this coming."

So did Stoudemire's teammates.

"He had a pretty sensational performance," Suns guard Steve Nash said. "I'm just proud of him. He made some incredible plays. But he was just aggressive. And I think once he got a few free throws early and a few buckets, I think he really felt like, 'Hey, I can keep attacking,' and all the frustration from the first two games where it was crowded in there a lot I think subsided."

The only emotions Stoudemire had left Sunday night were joy and relief.

Despite all the criticism he has endured recently, he never stopped believing that his team could turn the series back around and surprise the basketball world in the process.

"We can never lose our confidence," he said. "We can never not think we can't win. We played so great this season. We've done a phenomenal job this year so far, so we know how good we can be. It's just a matter of us bringing that focus and playing great on both ends."

As he walked triumphantly back into the Phoenix locker room at the end of the game, the rest of his revitalized team tried to put into perspective what they had just witnessed.

Jared Dudley was still in awe.

In the fourth quarter, he had taken a peek up at the scoreboard … now, almost an hour later, he still couldn't quite comprehend it all.

"Once I saw and looked up that he had 40, I said, 'It's a man amongst boys out there,'" the young forward said.

He was absolutely right.

Nick Friedell covers the Chicago Bulls and the NBA for ESPNChicago.com

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