The Lakers survived a tough test, but beat the Magic, 101-96, in overtime. The officiating was pretty awful in this game, especially in the first quarter and down the stretch. There was a series of calls late in the game that were all questionable and all went in the Lakers’ favor. Mickael Pietrus was called [...]
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KENDALL1 said June 08, 2009
JohnPaulsen replied June 08, 2009
speedwell said June 08, 2009
"Orlando had a ton of open shots in the first half and just couldn’t convert."
Rafer, JJ, and Jameer played terribly. You can't win when your starting PG goes 1-8 from the field. All the credit to the Magic for adjusting to the Lakers game plan. We can all see that the idea of Pietrus as a "Kobestopper" is a joke. He stopped Kobe for 40 points in game 1. Kobe can foul Pietrus out at will just with reputation and a jab step. I really liked seeing Turkoglu on Kobe though. I think this is a really good match up defensively. Kobe is not used to having a mobile 6'10" guy guarding him and I think that his length really threw off Kobe's game. Kobe had a really poor game, the box score doesn't fully explain how bad it was. After 13 years in the league, Kobe is still throwing jump passes in the air and blaming the TOs on the other guy. He has no reason to call guys out on that when the jump pass is such a fundamentally poor choice of passes.
Orlando should look to it's own team for reasons why they lost. Calling this game as won or lost due to officiating is really a poor analysis of why the Lakers have won the first two games. The Lakes have clamped down on Orlando's interior game, eliminating all post-up game and driving lanes. The Magic has been reduced to a jump shooting team, and the Lakers have dared them to shoot it, really only guarding three guys: Hedo, Dwight and Rashard.
jaymz77 said June 09, 2009