Dallas ? The way Amare Stoudemire is ripping apart the Dallas Mavericks, it’s a wonder the Phoenix Suns don’t just toss him the ball every possession and watch him go.

The Suns resist the temptation because they know they have to mix things up to keep Dallas from swarming their big man. But there are times — like the second quarter of Game 3, when the only question seemed to be how long the basket would reverberate after his next dunk — that even his teammates on the court catch themselves watching Stoudemire with awe.

“Oh, yeah,” said guard Jim Jackson, who can be excused for letting his jaw hang since he has been with the team only half the season. “You get caught up looking at a dunk and have to hurry up and run back.”

Stoudemire is averaging 35.7 points while leading Phoenix to a 2-1 lead in this second-round series. He just became the first player in the team’s 214-game playoff history to score 30 points three straight games, although it shouldn’t be a surprise because he did it all three regular-season meetings, too.

“He has the desire to be the best,” Suns coach Mike D’Antoni said. “There’s something in him that normal people don’t have.”

Others have Stoudemire’s size or his quickness or his athleticism. Hardly anyone has all three, and no one else gets to show it off in an offense so perfectly suited for those skills.

And he’s only 22.

“He’s scratching the surface,” Jackson said. “He’s unstoppable now, but it’s going to be scary.”

With MVP Steve Nash setting him up, usually via the pick-and-roll, Stoudemire has humiliated Dallas center Erick Dampier so much that across the country Shaquille O’Neal is using him as a punch line. The Mavericks aren’t laughing as they’re scrambling to find someone, anyone, who might be able to slow him down.

“Steve is such a great passer, and I’m such a great finisher, it’s hard to stop us,” Stoudemire said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do next because we’ve kind of exploited everything they have.”

Dallas coach Avery Johnson prefers to take a pick-your-poison approach in the playoffs. Recognizing you can’t stop everything a team does well, he’s willing to let stars be stars — like Stoudemire, or Houston’s Tracy McGrady in the first round — and focus on the supporting cast.

Problem is, Phoenix won a league-best 62 games because it has so many ways of scoring.

The Suns can take a 3-1 lead in the series with a victory tonight.