Amare Stoudemire hasn’t been shy about voicing his displeasure over not getting the ball late in games — look at his comments after the Christmas Day loss in Los Angeles and the home loss to New Orleans, which was followed by a missed practice that needed to be ”handled internally” by the organization.

 So you can imagine how sitting and watching the final 10 minutes Thursday against the Lakers — even in a Suns win — sat with Stoudemire. But Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni said his decision was the result of a perfect storm of consequence, not any grand plan that he had or intends to repeat.

 D’Antoni sat Stoudemire for the final 5:43 of the third quarter after he picked up his fourth foul (an offensive foul) and when he brought him back to start the fourth quarter “he just looked a little stiff.”

 Over the next two minutes, the Lakers scored eight straight points to cut an 18-point lead to 10. D’Antoni sent Steve Nash to the scorer’s table to come in for Brian Skinner when Stoudemire collected his fifth foul, also on the offensive end.

 ”So I said, ‘Steve, go get Amare,’ ” D’Antoni said. And he’s sitting over there now for five minutes but it’s really 20 minutes with all the TV timeouts. We’re up (nine) but we’re playing well — Boris is scoring and Skinny is defending — so instead of throwing him out there for one or two possessions to see, we just went with that group. And now it’s some kind of controversy, I guess.”

 Asked if Stoudemire was upset, D’Antoni said “Maybe just a little.”

 Shawn Marion also sat for five of the final six minutes. He came out not long after a prolonged protest of a no-call while the Lakers were scoring on the other end, but D’Antoni said that had nothing to do with his substitution decision, saying that he needed a rest after playing 18 straight minutes to open the second half.

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