Damn it. When the Lakers beat us, and everyone in the national media were proclaiming them dead, I had a sneaky suspicion that the Lakers were going to roll once they play teams they match up against. Too bad that has been the case.
Man...so I guess the Cavs would have given LA a better matchup...because I don't see how Orlando is gonna beat these guys. Howard can't dominate, they can defend their shooters and no one can stop Kobe. Maybe it's just one game....
Maybe it's just one game but talking about Howard. If he make his free throw, he can be the next MDE. But missing them free throw sure make him look like an average Center cause he aint got no jump shots.
Yeah refs are the reason Kobe completely sodomized Orlando's defense that qtr. Also the reason orlando is shooting the low fg% -_- And ft's are 20-11 in Orlando's favor.
Houston and Denver were wakeup calls for the Lakers. They steamrolled through the playoffs last year and were suddenly thrust against a tough Boston team. Now they had their challenges early and face a Magic team that lives and dies by the 3. Dwight is a beast but he's unskilled; which means he'll demolish weak competition and be ordinary against good competition. The East is still a joke outside of a healthy Boston team.
I used to run around quoting that scene with my sisters when I was little. Here's the translation I just found...
lakers' height/length negates every orlando's advantage over the cavs. the league is about matchups. lakers would struggle more with the cavs.
I don't see the Cavaliers putting up a better match against the Lakers. Cavaliers are still undersized with guards, no-offense power forwards, a perimeter center. It'd be watching LeBron go 1-on-5 again.
why are kobe and howard in this game? lets try not to get the superstars hurt in a 25 point game. apparently kobe is just in to make his stats look worse. 0-3 in the 4th and turning a good shooting night into an average one.
kobe trying to get that career finals scoring average up i guess. he's shooting more than when the game was on the line.
It's NBA final game 1, it's about statement. Not a tea party. Are we worried about hurting someone's feelings again?
Disappointing effort from the Magic -- to say the very least. They had no response whatsoever to Kobe taking the game over starting in the 2nd quarter. They had the classic deer-in-the-headlights thing going when that happened. It didn't help that Rashard had one of his patented 2-10 performances. Same with Rafer at 2-9 (don't you just miss those days?). Orlando might want to consider limiting Courtney Lee's minutes in this series. Either that or maybe playing him at PG against Fisher then letting Hedo run the offense because as JVG and Mark Jackson were correctly pointing out: the Lakers were picking on him. Whoever Lee was guarding was pretty much instantly getting the ball and scoring him. Whether it's Luke Walton or whoever they scored on him easily. It goes without saying against this Lakers team that you CANNOT allow their role players to kill you. It appears that's a possibility as long as Lee is in there. At least after one game.
