The Orlando Magic never deserved to lose more than they did on Thursday night at Amway Arena.
They lost more than a game. They lost faith, the public’s respect and – more than likely – the championship.
Derek Fisher’s Christmas Day-like postgame smirk said it all (as if the two he had after drilling his last two 3-pointers of game 4 weren’t enough). The Lakers’ 99-91 win over the Magic was a gift. Orlando did everything within its power to throw a season of efforts away in less than a minute.
The Magic led 87-82 with just over 30 seconds to go in regulation when Kobe Bryant got an outlet rebound off an Orlando miss and passed it off to a trailing Pau Gasol, who cut the lead to a three with a dunk. The Lakers’ next task was to play defense and get an opportunity to tie the game. There was a seven-second difference between game and shot clock time.
Los Angeles achieved its goal, but not the way it planned. Its horrid defensive possession allowed Magic center Dwight Howard to get wide open in the paint. Howard caught a pass almost under the basket and all alone, but along came Bryant, who had no choice but to foul him.
Here’s where the Magic started to become the sad joke of Orlando. Howard, not exactly known for his free-throwing prowess, missed both freebies, giving the Lakers life. “Superman” choked, and not exactly on kryptonite. He hadn’t done it alone on this night though. For the game, Orlando went 22-of-37 from the line. Howard accounted for eight of the 15 misses. Orlando’s version of Bryant – Hedo Turkoglu, an 80-percent foul shooter – was responsible for another five (the same number of misses Bryant had during Tuesday’s game 3). Who could win like that?
The Magic’s transformation into comedy continued just a minute after. Following a Lakers’ timeout, Orlando double teamed Bryant aggressively, trying to deny him the ball. Kobe got it anyway, but passed it ahead to Trevor Ariza, who gave it to Fisher. There were only six seconds left in the game and Fisher was dribbling in front of the three-point line with Magic guard Jameer Nelson standing well behind the same line for someone playing on a team that’s defending the most crucial three-point shot of the franchise’s history. Seeing the disrespect from Nelson as his chance to make himself public enemy No. 1 in Orlando, Fisher rose up for the game-tier and evened things at 87-87 with 4.6 seconds to go.
Turkoglu was sent to inbound the ball in the next possession. Why? Besides Rashard Lewis, Turkoglu is about the only player the Magic can count on when it’s crunch time. Turkoglu, who clearly has problems with ball-inbounding - not as bad as the Denver Nuggets though - had to pass it to Mickael Pietrus. The French’s attempt was rushed and off. The Lakers forced overtime.
By this point, it was clear the city’s franchise name shouldn’t be “Magic,” but “Illusion.” Still, Orlando went up by three after Lewis (six points) hit his second shot of the night (after scoring a combined 55 points over the previous two games). That was the last Magic field goal of the night. Orlando misfired on its next six shots, Howard missed one last free throw for good measure, and - moments later - Fisher was throwing in the go-ahead three-point dagger which gave Los Angeles a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals.
A couple of extra comedy bits as the game wound down in overtime: A Turkoglu miss got tapped all the way out to midcourt to an off-and-running Gasol, who dunked it for a five-point advantage with 21 seconds to play. Tukoglu slipped and fell down on the play. Even a clown had to get a chuckle out of that. Then, with the game all but sealed, Pietrus attempted to catch up to Gasol, who had the ball all alone under the rim. Pietrus tried to prevent the Spaniard from dunking in two easy points and, on the way, tattooed his hands into the back of the forward with a hard smack. Gasol confronted Pietrus, but kindergarten playgrounds have seen tougher scuffles. The game had been decided. Fisher, the hero, walked away with a smile and a fist up; and Howard, Pietrus, Turkoglu, Nelson and all that Magic disappeared – perhaps for good.
Game 5 is Sunday night in Orlando.
5 Comments
Lakers down by two, less than 40 seconds to go in the game, Kobe Bryant has the ball, Orlando's defensive strategy is simple: get that ball out of Kobe's hands. No matter what.
Seconds later, the Magic had achieved its single-possession goal, but likely in a way-more-positive manner it thought it would. Bryant tried to split through Mickael Pietrus and Dwight Howard, but the latter poked the ball away from him. Pau Gasol got it back from the Amway Arena's floor, but in an attempt to give it back immediately to the NBA's clutchest performer of the present, turned it over back to Orlando. The Bryant-initiated turnover was anything but Bryant-like. Non-Laker fans have seen Kobe rise up in the face of (INSERT NAME HERE, it really doesn't matter) and bury game-tighteners, game-tiers and/or game-winners. The degree of difficulty does not seem to be a problem to this one man. He ALWAYS makes it. Or so it seems. Not against the Magic on Tuesday night though. Kobe's Lakers were still alive - trailing 106-102 after Pietrus converted the aforementioned turnover into two made free throws - when the MVP went up for what, to him, was an uncontested 3-pointer. The shot was so off it bounced hard off the rim almost all the way out to the three-point line. So un-Kobeish. The Lakers got the rebound. There were still 16.3 seconds left. Down four still, and with Bryant on their team, the game was far from over. Los Angeles used that time to hoist up three more three-point attempts (one of those from Kobe). None were close. After Derek Fisher missed the last try with four seconds left, Bryant got the rebound and put in a layup which was too late to make any difference. The Lakers lost game 3 of the NBA Finals 108-104. Orlando sliced their series lead in half (L.A. leads 2-1). Bryant's putback with 0.5 seconds remaining gave him 31 points for the game, but he had scored 17 in the first quarter alone. Howard wasn't Superman in those first 12 minutes. Kobe was. He even had a four-point play. He disappeared after that. He had 10 points while missing 11 of 15 shots in the second half. He also missed five free throws. Even so, Kobe's known for crushing opponents' hearts when it counts the most. Not on Tuesday night, and that's why the Magic "survived" a game in which it shot a Finals record 63 percent from the field. Game 4 is Thursday night in Orlando. Game 5, which Kobe's off night helped exist, is Sunday at the same place. I once told a professor at CSUN that I wanted to write for the San Antonio Express-News because I loved the Spurs, the basketball franchise of the city. |
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March 2016
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