Right in front of Tim Duncan.

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San Antonio's free-agent-to-be forward sat out all four games of the first-round series to allow his left knee to heal, but the joint was in well-oiled condition as Duncan might have been the first one out of America West Arena after the Spurs' 89-78 defeat.

Duncan now has all summer to get the knee back to full strength, after the Suns eliminated the Spurs with their 3-1 series victory and advanced to the second round for the first time in five years.

Half of the inspiration with which Phoenix played could be attributed to Jason Kidd starting. He fractured his left ankle six weeks ago and practiced for the first time Monday, when it was thought that he'd be as doubtful for Tuesday's game as Duncan.

"You want to be calm, but when Jason came back the adrenaline went up," said Suns seventh-year forward Rodney Rogers. "It makes it that much more exciting. You got the best point guard in the league back, you're playing the world champs and they have to figure out how they'll stop him.

"They were hoping Tim Duncan would be back, then they come out and see Jason Kidd on the floor. So it's like, 'Whoa!' If you're them, you've got to take a deep breath and see what you're going to do."

And then you watch Kidd slice you and dice you for 10 assists. Kidd became the rudder of a frenzied and sloppy series, an element of control and confidence that the Suns sorely needed to avert a Game 5 back at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Phoenix culled the other half of its inspiration from Rogers, who was handed the league's sixth-man award before the game and raised it high to the adoring sellout crowd of 19,023.

Rogers then showed why he won the award with 23 points and 10 rebounds in 33 minutes off the bench. Sinking nine of his 15 shots, he was the best marksman on the court Tuesday night.

"I felt real good," Rogers said. "I was just glad to get the win. I passed up a couple of shots and Scott -- coach Skiles -- was like, 'Don't pass up that shot!' I was just getting into the flow of the game."

The Suns who started were mostly guilty of that. By the time Skiles put Rogers in for Cliff Robinson with 2 minutes, 40 seconds left, Phoenix trailed 19-8. Rogers played the rest of the first quarter and all of the second, and the Suns took a 42-37 lead into the half.

Before the half, forward Malik Rose joined Duncan on the San Antonio shelf when he tore a ligament in his right knee, making the future look very bleak for the champs.

Phoenix didn't trail again, although it got tight when Spurs reserve Derrick Dial cut his team's deficit to 72-68 on a layin with 7:40 left.

Then Rogers provided some breathing room with a layup of his own, the Spurs missed a shot and Penny Hardaway picked up the inspirational cue with a pair of free throws. San Antonio turned it over, and Kidd whipped out his scalpel.

Sliding to the left, at about the top of the key, Kidd saw a darting Hardaway and an avenue as slim as the gutter of a bowling alley. Kidd threaded the needle with a bounce pass by Antonio Daniels to the right and Samaki Walker to the left.

Hardaway caught it and in one motion threw down a powerful dunk that gave Phoenix a 10-point cushion, at 78-68. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich called for a timeout, and the Suns answered the Spurs shot for shot the rest of the way.

Jason Kidd and Penny Hardaway celebrate the Suns' big victory over the Spurs.(AP)

Hardaway tied Rogers for game-high scoring honors with 23 points, and he grabbed seven rebounds and gave out four assists. While Kidd was away, Penny helped out with 6.3 assists a game, the ninth-best figure in the playoffs.

"I never thought my talent went anywhere," Hardaway said. "It was just, a bunch of people wrote me off. I wasn't done. I got back healthy, which is the first thing you have to do, and everything else came back to me."

The last defending champ to bow out of the playoffs so early the following season were the Philadelphia 76ers, who won it all in 1983 and were bounced out of the first round in five games by the New Jersey Nets in '84.

Eleventh-year center David Robinson, with 21 points and 16 rebounds, tried his best to keep the Spurs close without his talented low-post complement to help out, but in the end San Antonio had too much talent on the bench.

With Kidd back running the show, the Suns had their talent zipping up and down the court.

"It's a tremendous disappointment," Robinson said. "I really thought, going down the stretch, that this team was coming together. The defense was looking very good. We all thought Tim would be back fairly soon and we could hold the fort together."

A jersey, Duncan's silver-and-black No. 21, probably has never gone from a best-seller to car-wash item quicker, and it's not a stretch for San Antonians to believe they watched him play his final game as a Spur on April 11 in Sacramento.

"I wish we would have had our team," said guard Mario Elie. "But Phoenix came out and did a great job."

The Suns culled their last piece, or 283 pieces, of inspiration from the concrete walls outside their locker room. Before this series shifted to the Valley of the Sun over the weekend, standout students from a dozen local elementary schools colored and painted posters of all sizes to fuel the Suns.

"Shawn, The Matrix" read one clever poster, applying the name of a recent blockbuster movie to rookie Shawn Marion. "The Spurs' Dreams and Ankles, The Suns are Shattering Both" read another. Yet another showed a huge, orange-red sunburst with "102-0" written below it.

Kids, forgive Kidd and his pals for letting the Spurs even score a point.

"We were excited," said eighth-year Suns guard Todd Day. "We have a lot of guys who had never won a playoff series. Myself, Jason, (Tom) Gugliotta, (Randy) Livingston, Toby Bailey ... so, we were excited to go out there and get this over with."

Finally, one poster adopted the "Let Yourself Go" slogan that adorns billboards all around Phoenix, one of which stands two blocks from America West with Kidd's mug on it. Tuesday morning, he knew he'd give it a go when he had no pain or swelling from Monday's practice session.

"It felt great," Kidd said. "The first couple minutes of the game, I felt like I'd smoked a pack of cigars or cigarettes. But after that, I got right back in the saddle and it felt great to be out there with the guys."

By the time the smoke cleared, the Spurs were heading toward a most uncertain future with the playoffs in their rear-view mirror.