Tuesday, June 9, 2009

NBA Championship Series - Lakers vs Magic Game 2

We've just had the Queen's birthday long weekend here in Australia so its been a few days since I last blogged. The upside of the long weekend tho, was that I got to watch game 2 of the NBA Championship Series between the Orlando Magic and the LA Lakers.

I got a call from some friends and we had an afternoon feast of sport. First there was the AFL game between Melbourne and Collingwood, then it was the NBA and the night wrapped up with Titans against the Dragons in the NRL.

After the disaster that was game 1 for the Orlando Magic, I was hoping they would bounce back in game 2. The game was again in LA so the Lakers were certainly the favourites and their confidence was riding high.

The first quarter was a dour, low-scoring affair with the scores tied at 15 at the first break. The Lakers pushed ahead in the second quarter before Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu found their shooting rhythms and the Magic came back.

The last quarter was back and forth and Orlando looked like they could steal it but two costly misses from Magic rookie Courtney Lee in the final minute meant we were headed to OT.

Orlando continued to turn the ball over in the extra period and LA hit their free-throws down the stretch and secured the win.

For the Magic, the good news was the form of their big 3, Shard, Hedo and Dwight. The bad news was the rest of their team shot just 8 of 30 from the field and had 20 turnovers to just 12 for LA. The Magic need better production from the likes of Alston, Lee and Pietrus.

For the Lakers, Kobe was good (29 points, 8 assists but 7 turnovers) without completely dominating like he did in game 1. The Lakers have to be delighted with what they're getting from Lamar Odom (19 points, 8 of 9 from the field, 8 boards off the bench) and Pau Gasol (24 points, 10 boards).

Here are the highlights from Game 2:

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