PHOENIX, May 26- Channing Frye and the rest of the Suns bench finally came through on Tuesday as Phoenix beat the Los Angeles Lakers 115-106 and level their NBA Western Conference finals series.Frye broke out of a shooting slump, with four three-pointers contributing to his 14 points as the Suns won their second straight game at home after dropping the first two contests in Los Angeles.
With the series knotted at two games apiece, the Lakers will host game five on Thursday.
A vaunted Suns bench had contributed little in the first three games but came up big in this one, outscoring their Lakers counterparts 54-20.
Leandro Barbosa scored 14 on 6-of-8 shooting and Jared Dudley added 11 points. Goran Dragic came in at point guard and had eight points and eight assists in 18 minutes.
Amare Stoudemire led Phoenix with 21 points and Steve Nash, playing with a broken nose, had 15 points and eight assists.
Kobe Bryant had 38 points and 10 assists for the reigning NBA champion Lakers.
Los Angeles managed to take the lead briefly early in the fourth quarter before the Suns reserves squelched the rally.
Suns coach Alvin Gentry kept all five reserves in the game for almost nine minutes to start the fourth period.
They came up with an 18-3 scoring run as they turned an 87-85 deficit to a 103-94 lead that proved too much for the Lakers to overcome.
"We believe in our bench," Gentry said. "Tonight they played as well as they could play."
Los Angeles took an 87-85 lead on Jordan Farmer’s three-pointer to open the fourth quarter.
But Barbosa responded with a basket to tie. Lou Amundson scored on a pass from Dudley, then Frye sank a three-pointer to put the Suns up 92-87.
That was the first of three straight three-pointers for the Suns, the second by Barbosa and third by Dudley to make it 98-89.
Dragic’s layup with four minutes remaining gave the Suns their biggest lead of 103-90.
After the first quarter ended 23-23, Phoenix broke out for 41 points in the second.
Bryant kept the Lakers in it with 15 points in the second quarter followed by 16 in the third.
The Suns improved to 6-1 at home in the playoffs, while the Lakers are 7-0.
"All we’ve done is earn ourselves a great opportunity to go try to win a game in LA," Nash said of the task still facing Phoenix.
The winners of the series advance to the NBA finals against the winners of the Eastern Conference series between Boston and Orlando, in which the Celtics lead 3-1.
