Results tagged “orlandomagic”

From the lows of that 131-92 game at Staples Center against the Boston Celtics a year ago, the Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic 99-86. This is the franchise's 15th championship and head coach Phil Jackson's 10th to surpass Red Auerbach. Kobe Bryant won the NBA Finals MVP for the first time. Comment away.

Here is the liveblog of Game 5 of the NBA. I assure you the Lakers will bring home the championship tonight.

The Orlando Magic are done. We all witnessed it Thursday night and saw them make many boneheaded plays in the last 30 seconds of regulation in Game 4 to cost them the game. Let’s break it down.

It took some scratching and clawing, but the Lakers defeated the Magic in overtime 99-91. The Lakers were off kilter to start off the game allowing Magic center Dwight Howard to grab 11 first quarter rebounds. Also all the Lakers bigs were in foul trouble at one point forcing the Lakers to play DJ Mbenga and Josh Powell. Thanks to Magic turnovers the Lakers were down by only four points despite not being able to shoot and. It would get worse for the Lakers in the second quarter where they couldn't defend worth squat and would trail at halftime by twelve.

After Game 1, I said that the Magic's outside shooters would not miss all of those shots again. Well the Lakers survived the Magic's improved shooting in Game 2 101-96 in overtime. After being non-factors in Game 1 Rashard Lewis and Hedu Turkoglu showed up in Game 2 knocking down 34 points and 17 points respectively. Lewis knocked down six three-pointers in the Magic's effort to steal one game on LA's home court. The effort would come up short.

LA Lakers defeat Orlando Magic 100-75. This certainly was not what I had in mind coming into this NBA Finals. The Lakers were led by Kobe Bryant scoring 40 points and getting eight rebounds and eight assists. This was the first time Kobe has scored 40 or more in the NBA Finals in his career. The game started out with both teams feeling each other out in the first quarter. The Magic took a five point lead at the end of the quarter. But in the second quarter despite surprisingly good play by Jameer Nelson, the Lakers started to pull away taking a 10 point lead into the half.

There's a reason it's taken me this long to talk about the NBA Finals. I have no idea how this will play out. When I made the proclamation last week that the Magic would win in five games if they faced the Lakers in the Finals, the Lakers didn't look to hot. They were in the middle of feeling out the Denver Nuggets tying the series two games a piece. But the Lakers brought down the hammer capped with a 27-point victory in the decisive Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, and everything changed right there.

I still say the Lakers will defeat the Denver Nuggets in six games. But it's not this series that I'm finding all that compelling. Out in the east, we are witnessing an Orlando Magic team that is tearing apart the Cleveland Cavaliers. Aside from the Magic's 10-point victory in game three, all games have been close: one point margins in games one and two and a two point victory by the Magic in game four.

LA Lakers defeat Toronto Raptors 115-107. It took three quarters but the Lakers defense finally thawed out and showed up to get the stops against the Raptors. Kobe Bryant scored 36 points far less than the 61 he scored Monday night in Madison Square Garden. Pau Gasol showed his consistency playing center with a 31 point, 15 rebound effort after his 31-14 game Monday night. A little alarming is the fact that Gasol played all but 3:30 of the game while Kobe played for 37:33. With the game tonight against the Boston Celtics, hopefully they don't have a lethargic performance.

Orlando Magic defeat LA Clippers 95-88. Man Dwight Howard has a tiny head, but boy can he play. He had a monster of a game scoring 22 points a notching 20 rebounds with six steals. And the Magic needed every point from their big man because at the end of three quarters the Clippers were leading by nine. Then the fourth quarter happened when the Clippers scored only two points in the first eight minutes. Now I've actually watched a couple of Clippers games recently, and they're not horrible. They have great shooters in Baron Davis, Al Thornton and Eric Gordon. It's just something happens in that fourth quarter where it falls apart.

The Clippers acquired Sam Cassell and a first round draft pick from the Minnesota Timberwolves for Marko Jaric and Lionel Chambers.

We here at LAist think that Loyola Marymount has the ability to be a much better basketball program. Fifteen years removed from its magical Bo Kimble-led run to the Elite Eight in the wake of Hank Gathers' death, we wonder what exactly went wrong with the Lions. Loyola Marymount is in a major basketball city and should be able to attract some of the quality local talent that doesn't wind up at USC or UCLA.