[JohnnyFlame]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Ouch, the Magic got steamrolled.

However:

1) The Magic probably missed 20 wide open jumpers - that is, not contested, not rushed, etc. etc. If they make even half of those, this is a game instead of a blowout. And probably 10 more that were open, but rushed/contested that were falling in the Cavs series, but just didn't go today.

2) Kobe was an animal. I thought the D played really really well on him, but he just hit shots falling down, going up, left, right, 3 guys on him, whatever. Just an animal.

Other thoughts:

1) Bynum can't guard Howard. Gasol manages to draw offensive fouls (questionable at best), but those calls aren't going to go Gasol's way every game. Although Howard had a bad game, I think this matchup can really be exploited.

2) Rashard Lewis is useless in this series. Gasol can guard the 3 better than Lewis can guard the post. This is actually the only point that I got from the game that really scares me in terms of the Lakers dominating. I had hoped that Lewis would torch Gasol, and they'd have to play small instead of 2 bigs, but Orlando was the one to make the adjustment due to how the game was turning out.

I have faith still. Nelson coming back is a great thing, a split in LA probably isn't too much to ask for!

I didn't see it as this time of year there are just way too many things to do that top sitting indoors. But I suspect that this being year number two for the Lakers in the final will be a huge bonus for them. Magic sounded like they were happy just to be there when I caught clips of them coming in. Perhaps they will get into the series back in Orlando and hopefully not too late to make a battle of it. After all I might feel like watching some if it's going to snow this weekend.