For all the gamblers out there I would say:

Lakers to win @ $2

Kobe to score 30+ $1.90

I could be wrong though.

God start by the Magic. Howard doing good and has the Lakers big men in foul trouble early.

Gasol, Bynum and now Odom all have 2 fouls each in the first quarter.

Lakers rebounds = 12.
Dwight's rebounds = 12.

Howard with a huge first half 14 boards and 5 blocks... Go Magic!!!

Magic played very well in first half. I do hope they win!

Howard has equalled Duncan's finals record of 8 blocks, with 3 minutes left. I think he might break it - had 3 blocks on 3 plays in the 4th.

Fisher, what a player

If dwight howard learns to shoot foul shots, he will be the 2nd best big ever (After wilt)

Refs are so inconsistent in this league. They will can the touchiest fouls, then absolute mayhem will happen for a whole play and nothing will be called.

Jameer Nelson, youre soft. unless your face is broken you play through that

Orlando should have won this, but i really hope L.A do now

and Ariza's my new most hated player. That guys so dirty. he's the new bruce bowen. a bad player in a good team who gets his spot by being dirty

OMG - the curse of Nick Anderson strikes again!

Magic should easily have won this game, and gone into game 5 confident of sending the series back to LA up 3-2.

This loss hurts them badly. They may just have thrown away the series today.

Props to Fisher for some big shots at the end though. Telecast said he has the third most threes in NBA finals history after Jordan and Horry!

Mark this one down as a championship to the Lakers.

D-Fish has a f*ing massive pair of nuts!!!

Magic can blame themselves. When the score was 87-84 to the Magic, Dwight only had to hit one free throw at the end of Regulation to gain a 4-point advantage and ice the game. Dwight misses both, then Nelson hangs off Fisher and gives him wayy to much space and Fisher bangs the 3. Why would he do that? He should have got right in his grill, and force him to take it to the rack and get the 2 point-FG. Poor decisions and basic errors by the Magic perhaps due to not having a strong enough mentality. Howard missed 2 FT's near the end, Hedo missed 3 in the last 2 mins.
Stan Van Gundy will be extremly frustrated to play like that, and little things like missed free throws let you down!

Absolutely right SKUX. An even better idea than getting in Fisher's grill and risking a shooting foul would have been NOT double teaming the inbounds receiver in the backcourt when they had a foul to give with 10 secs left! That freed up Fisher to get across half court and get balanced for the shot. Magic should not have doubled, and then someone would have been close enough to foul Fisher the instant he set foot across half court, no risk of a shooting foul then.

Yeah, I noticed they double team. Clearly, they were too worried about Kobe and forgot about Fisher!

Now that was a choke!! What was with Hedo's foul shooting? We know Dwight isn't the best foul shooter, but Hedo's decent, isn't he? They just lost the series right there, and why they didn't foul Fisher at the end i'll never know.

That game was basically in the bag for Orlando. If Lee could've hit that alley-oop at the end of game 2 and the Magic could've won what they should have today, it'd be 3-1 Magic.

Let's be serious though, free throws cost the Magic the game. They missed more than 15 for the game - 15! That is more than the young tackers I coach miss!

ELG, if you reckon Ariza is a dirty player.....what was the Pietrus foul on Gasol?

That was bullshite...game over, clearly beat, and he clubs Gasol in the back with clenched fists

Ref's/NBA tried their hardest to tie the series up...the FT count was what...20 attempts to 2 in the 4th/OT combined

Im not one to whinge about refs but that was a poor display IMO

yeah, that was uncalled for. But ariza is always hanging on, slapping away, hacking, holding, i hate that

That pietrus thing was frustration, ariza does it all the time

I agree.....but he aint no bruce bowen...lol

Rafer Alston wouldve been pissed off......sitting out most of the fourth and the OT period

JJ Redick had a good game...but didnt get court time in the second half

Fuck! How unclassy was Gasol at the end putting that dunk in with 2 or so seconds left..Just let the damn game play out. Don't they understand proper etiquette..Play out the clock and be respectful!

ELG - Dwight needs some actual post moves as well. If he developed a reliable jump hook and a 12 foot jumpshot, he would be unguardable.

He also has a terrible habit of bringing the ball down where guards can slap at it, both after rebounds and on the post feed. Costs him 5 or 6 easy shots a game.

Massive shot by Fisher. Terrible defence by Magic.

Yeah, he needs to develop a hook. or something.

But if he could shoot FT's, the defense would have to stop bailing him out, which would make it easier. Dwight should have the easiest time, playing with the people he does. If he realises that,and goes away this year and gets a semblance of a go to move (and works on his FT, at least he has a decent action), he'd be unstoppable.

And what did Jameer Nelson mean, after Fisher's first three, he held out his arms like 'what was i supposed to do?' Maybe there was a disagreement on orlandos bench about how to guard that play? hmmmmm....

Who knows? To me, Van Gundy has to play that possesion as half court defence, and decide clearly whether to foul early or not (and make it a free throw contest). As far as Jameer goes - just horrible D. Fisher basically hit an open 3 in rhythym. The only shot you can't give up in that situation.

I don't see what the problem is in subbing out Howard in that situation to stop him being fouled.

SKUX101- I bet you won't be saying that about Pau if he played for the Magics and it was a Magic win.

ELG- I actually had a discussion with somebody the other day that Bynum is more skilled with more moves than Howard; so it's funny you bring that up about Howard.

For those of you who's going to bring up Bynum's playoff slump...earlier this month I reviewed his physical for May and his lower body output is about 78% of what it was before injury so it's no way near full health (his vertical was about 24"), initially medical staff thought this decreased output was simply WAI but now it's confirmed he didn't make full recovery. Which is why he couldn't jump quite as high or explosive in many plays. When he got to play through that and fight with Dwight Howard, he's done well.

To Kobe, his finger has been aggrevated since game 1 and some other nitty-gritty stuff. But this game was a steal. Getting ready to pop some champaign!!!

LA Boy, fact is Gasol doesn't play for the Magic! Fisher was the one who passed him the ball, which was a totally unnecessary pass, he should have held onto the ball.
LA Boy, im not totally bias towards the Lakers. I don't think Ariza is a dirty player..He plays fair and hard and I admire his defence. But I think Gasol is lacking class, and Kobe's drive to win a championship is showing his "true, unsportmans-like self"

for those people who knows Pau will tell you he's definitely got some class; that was one play that no one else even talks about. Kobe unsportman-like? go around the NBA and find me somebody not named Smush Park (who's not in the NBA anymore) would say something like that.

I'm definitely not a blinded Lakers guy (earlier in the playoffs I even went as far as saying we don't deserve a championship) but the fact is Kobe has actually made everybody else around him better by his drive. You think it's coincidence just about every Lakers are becoming a workaholic? And there's no other player today who'd get the same respect Kobe gets from around the league, this alone says enough.

Not trying to make any comparison but reality is the very latest basketballer with this exact type mentality was named Michael Jordan.

oh yeah and on a side note, the last basketball player who had his teamates and players around NBA wearing his signature shoe was also named Michael Jordan.

LA Boy, that's some privileged info you have access to there! Do you actually work for the Lakers organisation?

Speaking of Howard developing some post moves, did anyone see the Russell inteview with him at half time? I like how he encouraged Howard to take it easy in the off-season. Maybe Russell wants him to develop that post game in 2010-11 so his boy KG can get another ring for the Celtics first? ;-P

I worked for them a few years ago and is currently back in LA to help them out with a few things; will be back in Melbourne next month.

I think Bill's advice would've came from a physical perspective, from a sport science perspective it is quite amazing when you think about the amount of beating he gets throughout the year; same as Lebron.

so reading a bit more between the line I'd think he's telling him to take it easy in the weights room and learn some moves.

not disrespecting Pat but I think Orlando needs to find a better teacher. Houston dumped him few years ago because he really weren't doing Yao much good. I'd pay big buck to try get Hakeem working with him; he's a great teacher similar to Kareem.

oh yeah and just if you're wondering, yes I get 2 tickets to all playoff home games but bad seats (something like 20+ rows up since it's staff section). been to all home games since Denver gm5.

but don't travel with them on the road which means staying back and browsing the net getting ready for the day to start (as what I'm doing right now!).

SKUX101 it was the correct play by Gasol to dunk it otherwise magic would have just fouled him to get him to the line.

ELG I'd like to see you take an elbow to the face like that and keep playing. Also I see nothing wrong with how Ariza is playing.

Magic massively stuffed up missing the foul shots and then stupid play at the end by Nelson. A smarter idea would have been to foul and give them two shots but I guess the way magic shot foul shots it wouldn't be a good idea.

Just watched the replay.

Here's my question - why the hell was Nelson even in the game at the end? Forget the Magic not fouling, forget them trying to double Kobe in the back half and forget that Nelson had done pretty much nothing all game. The ONLY play that could get LA back in the game was going to be a (contested) three, and you leave the shortest guy in the Finals on the floor? Can anyone seriously say that Courtney Lee wasn't a better option? I don't even care who wins, but bloody hell!!!

SVG, where amazing happens....

I suppose you are a Bruce Bowen supporter too, Kingjames?

twenty four - I agree with you. That was a massively stupid move by Van Gundy! Lee would have been the perfect option! There was no reason to have Nelson on at that point. Also, Van Gundy has massively stuffed up this series with the handling of Nelson and Alston.

No I hate Bruce Bowen with a passion but Ariza is nothing like him. You are the only one that is saying he is like that. I can't remember even the commentators saying Ariza is a dirty player or anything of that nature but rather that he is an excellent defender.

I like Bruce, have a lot of respect for that man. But KingJames is 100% correct there, Trevor's nothing like him.

Trevor's much more athletic with his length using his lower body quickness and speed; while Bruce defends with his hands and thus frequently been called a dirty player.

LA Boy, I think you missed that I was joking about Bill Russell's comment to Howard! He was clearly just giving Howard obvious advice - to give his body a break before he ramps up training again for next season.

20+ rows back isn't bad if they're free mate! If prices are anything like they were in Boston 2 years ago, thats at least $180-200 worth of tickets per game! (I splashed out and got two tickets about 15 rows back for a regular season game in 2007 and that cost me just over $200!!!)

And Boston's cheap too :-P

I use to work for Phoenix before LA and that time they had better seats for staff and some other benefits.

What I've heard Lakers are actually the stingiest organization in the league as far as employee benefits (Memphis apparently is really good to work for). But hey at least we get taccos if we hold opposition under 100pts!