A view on the NBA Finals.

I find it fitting that the first post on my new blog site is about the last round of the NBA playoffs. I know, I know, my timing is a little off, as we join the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic already two games deep into the series, with the Lakers on top two games to zilch. But I'm a glass is half full kind of guy so lets focus on the positive: there's still plenty of basketball left. Being from Los Angeles, I may have a little bit of bias towards this subject, but it's my blog so there. Watching the first game of this series I felt that Lakers played the best basketball of their postseason. They came out poised and ready, and showed a young and underprepared Magic team how to preform in the finals. Kobe Bryant had 40 points, eight assists, eight boards, 2 blocks, and 2 steals, while the Magic man Dwight Howard had a mere 12 points and 15 boards off one of six shooting. (Not gonna win to many games with your "best player" shooting six shots and then saying in his post game news conference that, "they have to play a lot harder than they did tonight." Are you kidding me? This is the NBA finals, probably time to bring the "A" game....but I digress.) Game two showed a much more "fierce" Magic team. Fierce being the operative word because if it wasn't for Rashard Lewis scoring 18 of the Magic's 20 points in the second quarter, it would have been another blow out. But again, it was inexperience that would prove to be the downfall of the Magic. When Kobe Bryant failed to ice the game with one second left due to a very nice and well timed block by Hedo Turkoglu, head coach Stan Van Gundy designed an amazing play with six tenths of a second that fooled the whole Staples Center, (and yours truly). Turkoglu made a beautiful alley-oop pass right into the hands of rookie Courtney Lee, and he missed the wide open layup, to WIN the game. Talk about a rough night. The Lakers went on to dominate the overtime period and now take this series back to Orlando up two games rather than tied at one apiece. Now its time to analyze. The missed layup by Lee is not only the kind of shot that can send a player into a slump, (especially for oh let's say a rookie on, oh I don't know, the biggest shot of his life for example), but also a team. I truly believe the Lakers have revealed the tricks of the Magic, and they need to strike while the iron is hot. If the post play remains in the Lakers favor (i.e. Gasol gets his 24 and 12, Odom gets 19 and 10, and Bynum can stay in the game for longer than five minutes at a time,) then it should give the Lakeshow the advantage they need to pull out a huge game three win. The important thing for the Magic to remember is that they are vastly superior behind the arc, have supposedly the best big man in the league, and have been in this situation before. Also, people need to realize that you cannot stop Kobe, you can only hope to contain him, I'll quote Denver Nuggets head coach George Carl, "Jesus would have had a hard time covering him." So good luck with that assignment. I'll end this post with extreme confidence in a Los Angeles Lakers team hungry for revenge for a terrible finals appearance last year, and with the best closer to ever play this game on your team (thats right I said best ever), I think they are ready for a post-Shaq title, Lakers in five. Also, to Mr. Lebron James, first you should learn how to play the game with respect then worry about winning a finals, don't worry, you can always try again next year. Enjoy the finals everyone, I know I will.