- That’s the best game I’ve ever seen from Kobe Bryant. That amazing passer, the brilliant shooter, the elite competitor, the terrific defender, everything. He was smarter than his defenders, quicker than his defenders, more powerful than his defenders, and when they managed to stay with him, he just hit the shot anyway. He hit shots with contact, worked out of the double team, his passes were right on target, and he gave everyone what they wanted. A virtuoso performance that makes him look like the best player in the world again. ABC Execs are happy, ESPN producers are happy, bandwagon fans across the country are happy, it’s more interesting than the Magic winning, and Jackson looks like a genius again. It’s a win for everyone but the Magic and small market fans.
- You’re going to hear the “Die by the three” stuff. Don’t buy into it. That assumes the Magic would have cooled off anyway, and does a disservice to the Lakers defense.
- The Lakers used the paint as a headquarters. They centered there, and used it to spring out on passers, to disrupt passing lanes, to close out on shooters, and it was incredibly effective. Great defensive gameplan by Phil Jackson.
- Dwight Howard didn’t attack the basket, and when he did, the refs let ‘em play. They let ‘em play at the other end, so you can’t blame the officials. He was completely ineffective.
- Usually either Turkoglu or Lewis play well for three quarters, then the other one takes over in the fourth. The Lakers shut them both down. They made Lewis play his position, power forward, and just beat him down.
- Courtney Lee is going to have a great career. But putting him against Bryant was too much, too soon.
- Luke Walton was supposed to be the Lakers weak link off the bench. He was superior to everyone on the Magic. Great defense, got buckets, made smart plays, completely terrific on both ends of the floor.
- If LA plays like this for four games? It’s broom time.
- I took Orlando in seven over at FanHouse because I’d ridden the Magic all playoffs, and I took them in seven because of how great I knew the Lakers could be when they tried. The more I’ve thought about it, the more a Lakers sweep seemed like a possibility. Like, in the Conference Finals, I knew a Cleveland sweep was impossible because of how good Orlando is. But maybe Orlando’s just not as good as the Lakers. I know it’s just one game. But that was about as dominating as it gets. This is what I feared all year. I had anxiety in November about the Lakers removing the element of surprise. well, they teased a surprise with their earlier failures. And perhaps now is when they prove they are a great team. Maybe now is when Kobe takes his place, finally, where Lakers fans feel he is. Maybe now is where Orlando is revealed as a fraud. I don’t want to think that, especially after one game, but the regular season, the matchup advantages, and Kobe freaking Bryant scare me otherwise.
- I mean, don’t get me wrong, Orlando had a bad night. Even when the Lakers defense wasn’t great, they just didn’t shoot well. LA shook their confidence, and that affected everything they did.
- Hey, good news. The small market team got wiped off the map. So we don’t have that terrible story to deal with. Sigh.
- Jameer Nelson played really well for his first game in four months. Not bad at all. Certainly better than Rafer. Nice to see you, Rafe. Here are the knives you stuck in your team’s back. They had some rust on them since you’ve been helpful for three weeks. Might want to clean that off.
- In a season when realistically, the Lakers were the best team all season, downing Boston and Cleveland with little resistance, wouldn’t it be just like them to rob us of a compelling Finals series after a terrific playoffs? From Boston-Chicago to LA-Houston to Boston-Orlando and the ECF, it’s been lots of fun. But the story might just be “Kobe Freaking Bryant.”
- By the way, SVG got worked by Phil.
- Battie for so many minutes? Why? For what purpose? To what end?
- Meanwhile, Phil used his bigs in good rhythm, managed an effective defense, created a great offensive flow, and had answers for everything.
- What’s the point?
Rate this post!Share:
I don’t care if this series goes 4 or 7 games, I just want you guys to ban the ref complaining from your twitter feed ->>>>>. I remember reading a post on here calling for all bloggers not to blame and whine about the refs this postseason.
You sound awfully bitter.
That’s an accurate post, but whoa! I just read your twitter feed. The Lakers shot two or three times as many FGs in the paint than the Magic in the first half, but the Magic had a 14-2 FT discrepancy in their favor, and half of your twitter posts are all about how the LAKERS are the ones getting all the calls? Amazing. The Polish Hammer’s magnificent nose obviously intimidated the officiating crew into swallowing their whistles every time he played his “two-handed shove in the back” defense on Gasol’s post-ups and drives. A more evenly officiated game in that first half would have meant a 20-point lead at halftime instead of ten. Yes, Bynum got away with a chop-down on Gortat that went for a no-call, and Pau’s flop on Howard’s 2nd foul was a terrible call, but the Magic was allowed to play extremely physical defense the entire first half and only got called for one shooting foul.
Oh, and LA not robbing of us of a good series. Orlando is, by not playing finals-level ball. If you’re not gonna try harder anyway, how about letting some other team get to the finals?
It’s hilarious to see you using an “Orlando didn’t shoot well” defense of last night’s performance. I seem to remember some Cleveland fans on here telling you about the Magic’s above average shooting recently. Not that the Magic aren’t a good team, but you just seem to have asymmetric commentary on the wins and losses.
Also hilarious to see a Magic fan taking a dig at the LA “bandwagon.” No Magic bandwagon out there, right?
LA fans: Get used to the Magic complaining about the officiating, even when they’re getting a lot of calls. After the ECF game when they enjoyed a 51-36 FT advantage, there were tons of complaints about how unfair the officiating was against the Magic.
Anyway, these are good notes. A couple of them just made me laugh based on your recent history.
But I said, specifically,
“# You’re going to hear the “Die by the three” stuff. Don’t buy into it. That assumes the Magic would have cooled off anyway, and does a disservice to the Lakers defense.
# The Lakers used the paint as a headquarters. They centered there, and used it to spring out on passers, to disrupt passing lanes, to close out on shooters, and it was incredibly effective. Great defensive gameplan by Phil Jackson.”
Check out this post from Tom Ziller for more on how the Magic weren’t just “hot” against the Cavs.
I gotta agree with Justin N. and The Dude Abides on this one. It’s a little weird to be complaining so vociferously about the refs bailing out the Lakers at home in a game in which the Magic held a decided FTA advantage all game long (final attempt totals: Orlando 29, LA 18); and in which Dwight Howard (the guy you were making the most complaints about) got to the line 16 times on only 6 field goal attempts. What were you seeing that got you so upset? Would you have thought it was being called fairly if the Magic had received more like 50 free throws, with Howard taking roughly 30 of those? You might want to save whining about the refs for a game in which they are actually favoring the Lakers.
I also said it’s a fan’s right to complain. The point was to drive home to bloggers that adding it to your game recap hurts the blog post. That wouldn’t be affected by my Twitter feed. But I’ll try to take your comments into consideration and lay off the officials.
All I did was praise the Lakers. How is that bitter?
Personally I don’t have a problem with complaining about the officials. Some times the officials are downright awful and should be complained about. I was just perplexed at the complaining about the officials last night, specifically in saying they were favoring the Lakers so much when everything seems to point to the contrary. Just seemed odd to say the refs appeared to be pro-Lakers in a game in which they sent the Magic to the line almost twice as much as LA, and in which nobody on the Magic was in foul trouble.
I’ll allow that they were letting the Laker defenders play Howard aggressively, but they were consistent in that they were letting the Magic defend the Lakers aggressively as well. I mean, Kobe took 34 shots and got to the line 8 times. Howard took 6 shots and got to the line 16 times. I really fail to see some heavy pro-Laker bias in last night’s officiating.
OK? So during an anomalous stretch of the season, the Magic shot a very high 3FG%. Statistically, the Magic shot a high %age during the ECF. They shot a low %age last night. Maybe if you took all of the games against the Cavs this season, there would be enough statistical evidence to show that the Magic will naturally tend to shoot a higher %age against the Cavs, but I’m not sure the small sample size will allow for that. Aside from that, I’ve never seen anything from Ziller that would make me think of him as an authority, and his methodology is wrong in construction the chart anyway.
Now, that’s just stats. I freely admit that I didn’t actually watch the game last night. Were the Magic shooting a lot of contested 3s? I would believe that, due to the size and athleticism of the Lakers compared to the Cavs (Gasol > Z, Odom > Varejao, Bryant > West, etc.), the Lakers were able to contest a lot more shots than the Cavs, leading to a lower %age. Unfortunately, the result of contested 3s vs. uncontested 3s isn’t reflected in box scores. If the Lakers shifted enough shots from the “uncontested” to the “contested” category, then the Magic could be at the same hot/cold level as they were in the ECF and still hit fewer shots.
Matt Moore says…
All I did was praise the Lakers. How is that bitter?
“Hey, good news. The small market team got wiped off the map. So we don’t have that terrible story to deal with. Sigh.”
“In a season when realistically, the Lakers were the best team all season, downing Boston and Cleveland with little resistance, wouldn’t it be just like them to rob us of a compelling Finals series after a terrific playoffs? From Boston-Chicago to LA-Houston to Boston-Orlando and the ECF, it’s been lots of fun. But the story might just be “Kobe Freaking Bryant.””
“What’s the point?”
Seems rather negative to me.
DKH…
I watched the 2nd half and listened to the first half on ESPN radio (if only Tirico and Hubie were calling the game on the TV, too). I would say the Lakers D deserves credit for making the Magic rush shots (except for Alston, who they clearly had designated as “the guy who can be left open”), but the Magic were also cold/tight/whatever.
One sequence was telling, though. The ball swung nicely to Rashard Lewis behind the arc straight out from the left elbow. Someone closed on him really quick (I can’t remember) with total commitment, and he gave a nice pump fake, dribbled in a few, and pulled up for an uncontested 18 footer. Brick. He should have hit that. But I’d rather Lewis hit those than 3s, so it was good D to force him inside the arc.
Honestly, I think Kobe just scared the heck out of them after a poor shooting 1st quarter when he came in during the 2nd and just hit a bunch in a row. They got back on their heels and then he torched them in the third.
Sorry, I meant “I can’t remember who” as in who closed on Lewis on that play. Someone who managed to make Rashard move, which is sort of dumb, considering he is 6′10″ and elevates amazingly on his 3 shot. He could have gotten it off, probably.
D-Wight Ho has gotta get back to being comfortable down low. (If that is possible.) He couldn’t finish anything. No touch.
The whole magic team was intimidated. They made their normal drives to the rim and kick outs to the 3, but finished nothing. Got to the rim. Got to the shots. Nothing went in.
Personally, I think the Magic have a better flow when Rafer runs the show. He gets them down the floor and doesn’t try to do too much. He gets the playmakers the ball and they know its up to them from there. When I saw Jameer take over the game for those 5 minutes in the 2nd, I got scared. Everyone was playing off Jameer and they got some easy baskets. But it just seemed to me that guys started waiting and watching to see what Jameer was gonna do. When the look finally got to them, there was no rhythm..
Jameer was great with the reserves but I’m afraid to say it. The magic are a better team when their point guard does less. When Turk is effective from the Point position it forces Rashards help over and Rashard is great from the weak side and off the help. When Jameer was running the team Turk went like 0-6(check the #’s) but as much as I like Jameer I don’t know that he added chemistry to the group when it mattered the most.
Question: did Bynum outplay Dwight Howard last night? Did Gortat outplay Howard last night?
“All I did was praise the Lakers. How is that bitter?”
Yeah you did. You gave their defense credit, you gave Kobe credit, and you gave Phil credit. You were very much so correct about these points.
However:
“In a season when realistically, the Lakers were the best team all season, downing Boston and Cleveland with little resistance, wouldn’t it be just like them to rob us of a compelling Finals series after a terrific playoffs?”
The Lakers flat out do not deserve little jabs like this. Sure they may be a storied organization, but you must evaluate them in the now. Gasol did not bribe the league to send him to LA. A lot of the players on this Laker team have worked very hard to get to where they are today and to be poised to win a championship. Just because they bring their A game every night of the finals and win in four does not mean they robbed you of an exciting finals matchup. As NBA fans, we cannot blame the team that left it all on the floor, we must blame the team that didn’t (last night obviously the Magic).
Orlando’s a resilient bunch. They might not win this series but there’s no way they play that badly in Game 2.
em-k, that was Odom who closed out so quickly on Rashard and forced him off the 3-pt line and into a more or less uncontested 18-ft pull-up jumper. It’s a lot easier to hit threes when the defenders trying to run you off the 3-pt line are Mo Williams, Booby Gibson, and Delonte West with Lebron at power forward. Trying to shoot threes over Gasol/Odom, Ariza, and Kobe is a lot different. In addition, it was obvious that the Lakers closed out harder on Rashard than they did on Rafer or Lee, although Lee still faced some degree of close outs. They also played tight defense on Turk the entire game, but especially so after the 1st quarter.
Flip flopping from a 7 game win for the underdogs to a sweep for the favorites after a blowout win…how unoriginal.
The Magic shot what? 29%? Some of that was just bad shooting, people. The Magic missed a lot of open looks even when they made the right plays. I’d agree with yackity yack that they were intimidated (and part of it could’ve been the pressure of being in the finals for the first time), but you can’t honestly attribute ALL of it to the Laker defense when the Magic are missing open threes and open layups. The Magic played well in the first quarter and then disappeared afterwards. They clearly weren’t watching Boston last season because they played poor defense on Kobe. Instead of double-teaming him and luring him into help defenders, they let him go one-on-one way too often in addition to giving up way too much spacing on the defensive end. It was pretty much the opposite of Boston’s disciplined defense last season and they paid the price.
Orlando SHOULD be able to play with this team, but if they’re going to let Kobe single-handedly beat them, he probably will. They need to make someone else beat them, even if it means giving up some shots to Ariza and the others.
Also, it’s not “negative” for Mr. Moore to want to see a competitive finals, Laker fans. He didn’t take anything away from the L.A.’s performance. On the contrary.
Oh, and for everyone subscribing to the theory that Orlando would have trouble shooting threes against the taller Laker players, Orlando shot 40+ percent against them in the two regular season games that Orlando won. Basically, it’s fool’s gold to attribute that to the Laker defense, which has long been known to be bad at defending the three. Orlando missed a lot of good looks from the three. Sometimes it just comes down to hitting the shots, and even when Orlando made the right plays, they could not buy a bucket. They should shoot better from the perimeter in game two, but the real concern is whether or not Howard will be able to get going, because if they continue to get pounded in the paint, their chances of winning won’t be good at all. Orlando is not going to win with Howard averaging one field goal a game. Finally, Tony Battie should NEVER be permitted to take a jumpshot. That was awful.
Why is everyone worked up about the author’s supposed “whining” about the officiating in game one. The way I read it, he showered praise on the Lakers and was merely throwing in a few “biased refs”/”NBA marketing machine” humor to spice up the post. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thinks the referees actually affected the outcome of this game…
Matt I really don’t know how you could say that Game 1 was Kobe’s best night. It’s definitely not the best game I’ve seen from Kobe Bryant – I mean the game was a blowout. It’s real easy to get stats when your up by 28 with a quarter to go. He has nights like that all the time so to be “his best game” it has to be something really really special.
Like for me, in 2000 he hit those 2 threes @ the end of the game and OT to win it over the Blazers and get the top seed in the playoffs. Later that season they played Portland in 7 and you see the kobe – shaq replay all the time on route to a championship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuP-36pNLsM&feature=related
waltonswisdom – The whining about the officiating that people were referencing happened on HP’s Twitter feed, not in this article’s writeup. Just FYI.
SoCal01 – Kobe hit those two threes against Portland in 2004, not in 2000, and by hitting those two shots it gave the Lakers the 2nd seed, not the top seed (Minny was the top seed in the West that year). In 2000 the Lakers won 67 games in the regular season and finished about as far in front of the 2nd seed (Portland) as they did this year.
[...] haven’t felt all that interested in sports of late. Sure, there are a million reasons to love the NBA playoffs, there’s all sorts of anger-gold to be mined in rooting for a [...]