RealClearSports: There's No Magic for Orlando
By Art Spander
So life returns to normal. The Lakers win another championship, the Magic kick themselves – or maybe an effigy of Mickey Mouse – and we settle down to a summer of contemplating exactly how good Kobe Bryant really is.
Oh, the Lakers haven’t yet won the NBA title? Indeed they have; only the league has yet to make the acknowledgement.
You heard all the comparisons, Hollywood vs. Disney World, not that there’s much difference between the two if you don’t count humidity and the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. In Hollywood, however, they always know how the script ends.
And watching Hollywood’s team, the Lakers, so do we.
Not a bad game Thursday night, the fourth of these very enticing finals. The home team (bad guys, if you’re some screenwriter who has Laker tickets) makes a little noise but, because it can’t make free three throws come apart when it should be coming together.
Long ago we learned pro basketball is a game of ebb and flow, and just because one team – the Magic, in this case – looks brilliant and the other can’t read a defense or seemingly a shot clock, it doesn’t mean that’s not going to change.
Trailing by 12 points at halftime, shooting 33 percent from the floor, the Lakers stepped out of their funk, stepped up the defense, made their usual key shots and beat the Magic, 99-91, in overtime.
Or did the Magic beat themselves?
“Free throws,’’ said Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy, the guy who hasn’t gone hungry – literally that is; figuratively, since he and the Magic have never been champions, they are candidates for food stamps.
“What did we shoot, 59 percent?’’ He knew. What we all knew was that when you get 37 foul shots and miss 15, you don’t deserve to win. When you have a five-point lead with fewer than 30 seconds remaining and get tied in regulation, you don’t deserve to win.
This wasn’t exactly a choke job by the Magic. Rather, it was comeback by the Lakers. Rather than a tightening of throats by Orlando, it was a tightening of the defense by Los Angeles.
They know a good story in Hollywood, and Derek Fisher definitely is one. He was with the Lakers when they won their three titles with Shaq and Kobe. Then, because of things like age and salary caps, he was let go, signing first with the Golden State Warriors, where he fit like an elephant would in a Mini Minor, and after that with the Utah Jazz.
His infant daughter was stricken with retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor in her left eye, but Fisher kept coming back from the hospital to help the Jazz come back in the first two rounds of the ’07 playoffs. Then, released once again, he was re-signed by the Lakers where, as we noted, he released that rainbow 3-point jump shot.
The first, with 4.6 seconds left in regulation, tied the game, 87-87, Thursday night. The second, with 31.3 seconds in overtime, broke another tie. Explaining why he was open on both attempts, Fisher, who offered a very noticeable smile after the one in OT, told ABC-TV, “No. 24 gets a lot of attention.’’
That, of course, is the man of the hour, Kobe Bryant. And even though Kobe was only 11 of 31 on field goal attempts, he did score 32 points and have eight assists and seven rebounds. Without him, of course, the Lakers aren’t even close.
At intermission, however, some may have concluded they were close to a collapse. Yet even though L.A. was out of synch – “We got hamstrung; we played soft,’’ said Lakers coach Phil Jackson – you sensed Orlando didn’t believe in itself.
The Magic kept waiting for the Lakers to make their run, and with Trevor Ariza scoring 13 points in the third quarter after scoring no points in the first half, they made it.
The Lakers are the better team, the championship team, and the only question was when they would play like champions. The answer was not long in coming.
Kobe has been badgered about during this series by critics who no matter how much he does expect him to do more. There was a story that having been on the Olympic team last summer and then going straight into the NBA season, Kobe is worn out, and the weariness is showing. What’s showing is Bryant’s character. And courage.
We’ve watched great shooters over the years, Sam Jones, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan naturally and now LeBron James. It’s hard to say where Kobe ranks, but it’s not worse than second.
Weary, worn out, smacked around by Mickael Pietrus, hammered by Dwight Howard, Kobe still connects most of the time when he gets free and some of the time when guys are hanging on his arms.
He wanted a championship. He’s got a championship. He and the Lakers. Like Magic.
So life returns to normal. The Lakers win another championship, the Magic kick themselves – or maybe an effigy of Mickey Mouse – and we settle down to a summer of contemplating exactly how good Kobe Bryant really is.
Oh, the Lakers haven’t yet won the NBA title? Indeed they have; only the league has yet to make the acknowledgement.
You heard all the comparisons, Hollywood vs. Disney World, not that there’s much difference between the two if you don’t count humidity and the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. In Hollywood, however, they always know how the script ends.
And watching Hollywood’s team, the Lakers, so do we.
Not a bad game Thursday night, the fourth of these very enticing finals. The home team (bad guys, if you’re some screenwriter who has Laker tickets) makes a little noise but, because it can’t make free three throws come apart when it should be coming together.
Long ago we learned pro basketball is a game of ebb and flow, and just because one team – the Magic, in this case – looks brilliant and the other can’t read a defense or seemingly a shot clock, it doesn’t mean that’s not going to change.
Trailing by 12 points at halftime, shooting 33 percent from the floor, the Lakers stepped out of their funk, stepped up the defense, made their usual key shots and beat the Magic, 99-91, in overtime.
Or did the Magic beat themselves?
“Free throws,’’ said Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy, the guy who hasn’t gone hungry – literally that is; figuratively, since he and the Magic have never been champions, they are candidates for food stamps.
“What did we shoot, 59 percent?’’ He knew. What we all knew was that when you get 37 foul shots and miss 15, you don’t deserve to win. When you have a five-point lead with fewer than 30 seconds remaining and get tied in regulation, you don’t deserve to win.
This wasn’t exactly a choke job by the Magic. Rather, it was comeback by the Lakers. Rather than a tightening of throats by Orlando, it was a tightening of the defense by Los Angeles.
They know a good story in Hollywood, and Derek Fisher definitely is one. He was with the Lakers when they won their three titles with Shaq and Kobe. Then, because of things like age and salary caps, he was let go, signing first with the Golden State Warriors, where he fit like an elephant would in a Mini Minor, and after that with the Utah Jazz.
His infant daughter was stricken with retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor in her left eye, but Fisher kept coming back from the hospital to help the Jazz come back in the first two rounds of the ’07 playoffs. Then, released once again, he was re-signed by the Lakers where, as we noted, he released that rainbow 3-point jump shot.
The first, with 4.6 seconds left in regulation, tied the game, 87-87, Thursday night. The second, with 31.3 seconds in overtime, broke another tie. Explaining why he was open on both attempts, Fisher, who offered a very noticeable smile after the one in OT, told ABC-TV, “No. 24 gets a lot of attention.’’
That, of course, is the man of the hour, Kobe Bryant. And even though Kobe was only 11 of 31 on field goal attempts, he did score 32 points and have eight assists and seven rebounds. Without him, of course, the Lakers aren’t even close.
At intermission, however, some may have concluded they were close to a collapse. Yet even though L.A. was out of synch – “We got hamstrung; we played soft,’’ said Lakers coach Phil Jackson – you sensed Orlando didn’t believe in itself.
The Magic kept waiting for the Lakers to make their run, and with Trevor Ariza scoring 13 points in the third quarter after scoring no points in the first half, they made it.
The Lakers are the better team, the championship team, and the only question was when they would play like champions. The answer was not long in coming.
Kobe has been badgered about during this series by critics who no matter how much he does expect him to do more. There was a story that having been on the Olympic team last summer and then going straight into the NBA season, Kobe is worn out, and the weariness is showing. What’s showing is Bryant’s character. And courage.
We’ve watched great shooters over the years, Sam Jones, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan naturally and now LeBron James. It’s hard to say where Kobe ranks, but it’s not worse than second.
Weary, worn out, smacked around by Mickael Pietrus, hammered by Dwight Howard, Kobe still connects most of the time when he gets free and some of the time when guys are hanging on his arms.
He wanted a championship. He’s got a championship. He and the Lakers. Like Magic.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.
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http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/theres_no_magic_for_orlando.html
© RealClearSports 2009
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http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/theres_no_magic_for_orlando.html
© RealClearSports 2009