NBA Finals: Game 2 Recap

"WHEW!!" That is probably the word that best describes how the Lakers and their fans felt after ekeing out a win over the Magic in overtime of Game 2. Orlando showed their penchant for recovering and shaking off bad games, and Stan Van Gundy showed why he is such a great coach, making adjustments that took the Magic from a 25 point blowout loss to 2 missed layups in the final 10 seconds that would have evened the series heading back to Orlando. This was a game that the Magic SHOULD HAVE won. Throughout the entire game they looked like the better team, yet they never led by more than 3 points at any point. Their defensive adjustment to guarding Kobe Bryant held him in check, as Bryant scored 29 points on 45% shooting, and turned the ball over 7 times. Instead of laying off of him on the pick and roll and giving him a good look at an easy jumper, Orlando's bigs jumped out on him and they trapped hard, forcing Bryant to put up bad shots that he either missed or got blocked on or make a tough pass that resulted in a turnover. On more than one occasion Bryant raised up to shoot after going around a screen only to have a Dwight Howard or Hedo Turkoglu (or both) go right up with him and change his mind to a pass, only his teammates thought he was shooting and vacated the area to crash the boards. Orlando also played bigger. They tried putting Dwight Howard and Marcin Gortat out there together (with Lewis at the 3 and Turkoglu at the 2--4 guys that were 6-10 or taller), which made them a lot better defensively. Also, that allowed Rashard Lewis to slide to the 3 spot and get him matched up with a smaller guy like Trevor Ariza or Luke Walton. As a result (though some weak closeouts by Lamar Odom helped too), Lewis caught fire in the second quarter, scoring 18 of Orlando's 20 points in the period, and finished with his best performance this postseason (34 points, 6-12 3pt, 11 reb, 7 ast). In the second half, the Magic left their point guards on the bench, playing with bigger guards and having Turkoglu run the offense. This lineup has been their best one throughout the postseason, though for some reason they sat Courtney Lee for 38 straight minutes in favor of J.J. Redick (Lee was a team best +3 on the court). The adjustments the Magic made worked out like they wanted. They were better defensively, their big 3 got going (25-41 for 73 points as opposed to 6-27 for 33 points in game 1), and they got open looks for their other guys. Their biggest problem was that none of those other guys could make a shot. Magic players not named Hedo, Rashard, or Dwight combined to go just 8-31 from the field. In particular, Courtney Lee had two chances at layups in the final 10 seconds of regulation to break an 88 all tie, and missed both times, including a well-designed lob play from out of bounds with 0.6 seconds on the clock (and for any Magic fans out there who say Pau Gasol should have been called for goaltending, I strongly urge you to shut up and watch the play in the first quarter when Howard blocked a Gasol shot by putting his arm THROUGH THE BASKET!!!). While the Lakers struggled offensively throughout the game, their defensive effort remained intact for yet another game (their 4th straight holding their opponent to under 100 points). The Lakers stripped guys of the ball, particularly Howard who turned it over 7 times on his own, and got into passing lanes, the main reason Turkoglu finished with 5 turnovers, and got easy points off the break (28 points off of 20 Orlando turnovers). They made things tough on Dwight Howard again, despite the foul trouble of Andrew Bynum and forced him to live outside of the paint for a second straight game. The Lakers got away with some lackadaisical rotations when the Magic missed their open shots and luckily getting outrebounded by Orlando didn't come back to haunt them either. The bottom line to this game was that Orlando outplayed the Lakers, but missed too many opportunities, whether through missed shots or turnovers, to steal a game on the road. Maybe the wizardry of the Lamar Odom Corollary kept victory out of the Magic's reach. Odom played another fantastic game (19 points, 8-9 fg, 8 reb, 3 blk) and proved that the Lakers cannot be beaten when he is on his game. Whatever the case may be, letting this game slip away may have just cost the Magic the series and the championship.