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Factors who would win in Game 2
1. Dominant big man
He started with Wilt Chamberlain and worked his way down. Bob Lanier. Bill Walton. Moses Malone. Artis Gilmore. Robert Parish, who delivered him three memorable championship battles. Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing, representing the youth brigade, arrived in time to take their turns.
Over some 20 seasons, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stood across from them all. These were the men who helped form his training ground. If you wanted to be the best, to stay the best, you took on the best your peers had to offer. For a center during those two decades, the challenges came one after the other, the next only a night or two away.
“I understood that I had to keep my skills sharp,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “If I didn’t prepare and be ready to do what I had to do near the basket, I’d be embarrassed.”
Now 62 and an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar looks out on the NBA today and says, politely, “It’s a different landscape.”
Kobe Bryant(notes), LeBron James(notes) and Dwyane Wade(notes) have their MVP tug-of-war. Chris Paul(notes), Deron Williams(notes), Tony Parker(notes) and Rajon Rondo(notes) have given the league an ever-burgeoning crop of fleet-footed, game-changing point guards. For franchise centers, however, these are the days of climate change and tar pits.
“We’re like dinosaurs in the NBA,” Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard(notes) said of himself and his 7-foot counter for the Lakers, Andrew Bynum(notes).
2.Nelson’s return puts Alston in awkwardRafer Alston(notes) stood in front of his locker, neatly dressed in a crisp white suit. He was cool, he said. No reason to complain. No reason to march up to his coach and ask for his minutes back. He’d have to adjust, but he’s built a career out of adjusting.
Sitting one locker over, to the left, was Jameer Nelson(notes). A couple of ice bags were taped to his right shoulder. He had just played 23 minutes in the opening game of the NBA Finals, which were about 23 more than anyone had expected him to play five days ago. He said he felt good, aside, of course, from the 100-75 beating the Los Angeles Lakers had handed his Orlando Magic on Thursday.
Anyone watching could appreciate the irony, as awkward as it seemed. Alston standing, Nelson sitting a few feet behind his left shoulder. Starter and backup. One yielding to the other.
The Magic walked out of Staples Center thrashed and humbled, and now they must ask themselves this: By bringing back one point guard, did they lose another?
“It’s tough,” Alston said. “It’s tough.”
3.Kobe bullies Magic
The Boston Celtics started Kobe Bryant(notes) on the run in the NBA Finals a year ago, discombobulating him with a hellacious defense and a scoring star, Paul Pierce(notes), who played the part of the series closer. Pierce climbed out of a wheelchair, grabbed Game 1 and Bryant never dominated. Truth be told, the dirty little secret of the Celtics’ 17th championship coronation is still often overlooked: Bryant had a flawed, forgettable series.
Everywhere Bryant probed, there was a Celtic waiting to stop him. Bodies closed fast in the paint, space dissipated and Boston bottled Bryant into a solitary confinement.
So much chased Bryant into the 100-75 Game 1 victory on Thursday night. Shaquille O’Neal(notes) and LeBron James(notes), Michael Jordan and the Celtics. When everyone else plays for an NBA championship, Bryant’s burden hurtles him toward history.
Bryant had come to the Staples Center to take something back, restore his rightful place on basketball Olympus, and his performance turned out to be pure hellfire.
“I just want it so bad,” Bryant said softly Thursday night. “I just want it really bad.”
Here’s how Bryant started the final leg of his first championship without Shaquille O’Neal: He delivered the kind of spirit-breaking Game 1 obliteration of an opponent that Shaq mostly did in those three straight Los Angeles Lakers titles early in the decade.
In two of those series, Shaq dropped over 40 points. Bryant didn’t do it with Shaq’s brute force, but in his far more surgical way. Forty points, eight rebounds and eight assists burst out of Bryant, a barrage balanced between pick-and-roll jumpers and twisting, contorted drives.
4.Magic need more effective Howard
Hubie Brown first tried positioning two recorders and a knife on the table in front of him. When that didn’t work, he grabbed a reporter’s notebook and sketched his idea on paper.
Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy has his own equipment and undoubtedly spent his Saturday doing what Brown was doing: Trying to draw up ways to make Dwight Howard(notes) more effective.
After a lackluster start to the NBA finals, the Magic need Howard to play better—and maybe smarter and harder—when they face the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 on Sunday night.
“I don’t think I was patient enough in the post. I don’t think that they caused a lot of problems for me. I think it was just rushing and wanting to do so much without being patient,” Howard said. “I think out of all the games I’ve had in the last two playoff series, I was probably the most impatient the last game.”
Howard was limited to six shots—six Orlando players took more—made only one, and scored 12 points in the Magic’s 100-75 loss on Thursday.
After dominating the Cavaliers and averaging 25.8 points in the conference finals, Howard found things much more difficult against the Lakers, whose post players are stronger and much more mobile than Cleveland’s.
5.Lakers’ Bryant pushing toward title
Behind Kobe Bryant’s(notes) stone-faced mask and the icy grimace he’s wearing in these finals, his eyes are laser locked on one target: His fourth NBA title.
His vision is so narrow, so sharp that he can’t think about anything but a shiny championship trophy now close enough to touch.
To him, these two weeks are all that matters.
After that, it’s anyone’s guess.
As he and the Los Angeles Lakers practiced in advance of playing the Orlando Magic in Sunday’s Game 2, Bryant, as few as three games from wrapping up his 13th season as a pro, said he has not given any thought about giving up what has been the driving force in his life.
“I don’t know,” he said when asked how much longer he’ll play. “I just love the game so much still. “I just feel like there’s still so much out there for me to improve on and work on. My body feels great. God willing, I stay healthy, I’ll just keep going.”
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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