LAKERS OUTLAST MAGIC IN OVERTIME TO CLAIM GAME TWO OF THE NBA FINALS

The Orlando Magic played like a team that belonged in the NBA Finals on Sunday, but in the end all they had to show for their effort was a two game deficit to the Los Angeles Lakers.  After being embarrassed in game one, Orlando played L.A. tough in game two forcing overtime before dropping a 101-96 verdict.   The series now shifts to Orlando for the next three games under the NBA’s 2-3-2 finals format beginning on Tuesday night.

While the Magic lost the straight up decision they did cash sports bettors’ tickets as +6’ road underdogs.  Orlando has covered eight of their last ten games, and they’ve now covered against the Lakers in four of their last five games at The Staples Center.  Despite the overtime period the 197 combined points failed to exceed the 202 total, continuing the defensive oriented form of the head to head meetings in Los Angeles where 4 of the last 5 and 10 of the last 13 games at the Staples Center have gone UNDER. 

Kobe Bryant again led the Lakers in scoring with 29 points, while Pau Gasol continued his exemplary play by posting another ‘double/double’ consisting of 24 points and 10 rebounds.   Lamar Odom added 19 points and 8 rebounds off the bench, and Derek Fisher chipped in for 12 points.  The Magic got a boost from Rashard Lewis, who had a monster game with a 34 point/11 rebound ‘double/double’.  Lewis also added 7 assists in his best all around performance of the postseason.  Hedo Turkoglu scored 22 points with 6 rebounds, while Dwight Howard contributed a ‘double/double’ effort with 17 points and 16 rebounds along with 4 blocked shots.   The biggest liability for the Magic was their turnovers—they turned the ball over 20 times against 12 for the Lakers.

In his post game interview, Kobe Bryant’s ‘game face’ remained intact:

"What's there to be happy about? The job is not finished.  I don't think we dodged a bullet. They bounced back like we knew they would, played extremely well, and we got out of here with a win. We just did our job defending our home court. Now it's time to go to Orlando and see if we can't get one.”

Orlando’s Dwight Howard said that his team wasn’t about to roll over despite the 0-2 series deficit:

"We've just got to go home and take care of business. We've been in some tough situations. We've just got to fight our way out.''

The Magic are a -4 point home favorite in game three, a number that is likely ‘shaded’ somewhat due to the urgency of not going down 0-3 in the series.  Game three will pit two strong situational trends against each other—the Lakers are 9-2 ATS this season as underdogs, while the Magic are 11-1 ATS against Pacific Division opponents.  .  As one of the best road teams in the past few seasons, it’s not surprising that the Lakers have done well on the Magic’s Amway Arena home court.   Los Angeles has won and covered two of the last three games in Orlando, though they did lose SU and ATS in their lone regular season appearance this year. 

The total for the game has again been revised downward to 197’ In contrast to the form of the head to head matchups in Los Angeles, the meetings between the two teams in Orlando have shown a strong bias to the OVER.  8 of the last 13 games played at Orlando have gone OVER (8 OV, 4 UN, 1 push) including the last three.  Based on the two teams’ post season performances, the right position on the total is dependent on which team dictates the tempo of the game:  Orlando has gone OVER in 5 of their last 8 games, while the Lakers have gone UNDER in 10 of 12.