2009 NBA Finals (Game 5 Recap)

#1 Los Angeles Lakers 99 (WEST) @ #3 Orlando Magic 86 (EAST) (Lakers win series, 4-1) It was a long wait. But, finally, the Lakers are the champs once again. It's their first since 2002. Let's go over the game first, though. Admittedly, I missed the first quarter... and that seemed to be the only time the Magic were in the game. In the 2nd quarter, the Lakers went on a 16-0 stampede. That pretty much proved to be the game as Orlando never recovered from that. The Magic just died by the 3 as they shot 8-for-27 from downtown. Everything just seemed to click for the Lakers. They played great defense on Dwight Howard and the Lakers had five guys in double figures. Kobe Bryant had his usual 30-6-5 while Pau Gasol had a beastly 14-and-15 game. Lamar Odom came off the bench to score 17 points and 10 rebounds while Derek Fisher finished off the final round with 13 points. The Lakers don't win this without Trevor Ariza's help. Ariza had 15 points and played hellish defense against Hedo Turkoglu (throughout the playoffs, really). Some people have gone on to say that Trevor Ariza should be the MVP of the Finals because he did all the little things to keep L.A. alive. Let's be real, though; the Lakers were definitely led by Kobe Bryant. This has been said way too many times but Kobe Bryant was just locked in on this Finals. I want to give Orlando credit. Besides the die-hard Magic fans, I don't think many people had Orlando pegged in the finals. It was either Boston or the prematurely-crowned Cleveland Cavaliers. But the Magic got through both and showed they are an elite team for years to come. Dwight Howard was not even close to dominating this series but with a lot of work on the post and protecting the ball this summer, he will be a monster in the years to come. Turkoglu is going to opt out of his contract and keeping him in a Magic uniform will be one of the keys this summer if they want to go back to the Finals. But this year was the Lakers' year. Yeah, we said many times that they didn't deserve to win the title... but it doesn't matter how it was done. Everybody saw what L.A. can do when they're playing at their best... and when they are on that state, no team can beat them. And in the playoffs, nobody beat them in a seven-game series. That's what mattered the most. Follow me on Twitter. I am on there as @TheNoLookPass.