Post-game discussion of Lakers-Magic NBA Finals Game 3

[RedBlackAttack]

How can anyone dislike Pietrus? He rises to the challenge and makes some big plays. Plays hard, plays clean, plays big minutes. He can be a bit inconsistent but that's why he's role player and comes off the bench.

If you would have gone through what I went through as a Cavs' fan in the ECF, you would understand. The guy simply could not miss on his little corner 3-pointers off of the ball rotation. Then, he started hitting ridiculous, out of this world shots that had no business going in. But, what made me angry and ultimately hope for his failure in the Finals was that, after every made jumper, the guy would laugh hysterically all the way back down court. It got really annoying... Maybe not to a neutral observer, but when the guy is throwing daggers in your heart and then constantly chuckling about it, you tend to hold a grudge.

Then, he comes into this series and, in the first 2 3/4 games, he didn't do a f#cking thing and looked like he was about to sh!t his pants the majority of the time.

I don't dislike him as a person, obviously. When I say that I 'dislike' Pietrus, it is his play and, more specifically, his dagger shots and smarmy smirks and laughs.

Any sports fan that had their team suffer such a devastating series should understand where I'm coming from.

[Fatal9]

Kobe still shot better than Lebron did in any of the three games in Orlando. Also, despite him choking, it was no where near the Lebron choke of 7 turnovers in a 10 minute span in game 4 (which Cleveland had wrapped up if he holds on to the ball). Not that I really care, but interesting to note that the OP didn't make threads about that, nor did half the board go into a frenzy calling it a choke. What a pathetic forum. at me being a Kobe fan because I said he's top 10 if he wins this year (any reasonable people disagree?!?!). What a sad forum, reasonable posters like me are labeled as "trolls". I do recall being called that when I was critical of the Cavs team during the season and everything I called turned out to be true in the Magic series. Apparently my agendas have ranged from anti-Lebron, pro-Wade, pro-Kobe, anti-Kobe (according to Laker fans in some threads), anti-Jordan (because I like Pippen), pro-Jordan. Hilarious stuff

[hwliuLAP]

At the same time, the Magic were completely off for the majority of Game 2 and should have probably won. The last two games have been what I expected in this series... Two evenly matched teams going back-and-forth.

I think Game 1 was an adoration, not the last two. Expect Game 4 to be very close and come right down to the end. Orlando seems to have finally caught their rhythm after an absolutely uncharacteristic HORRIBLE shooting start to the series (first seven quarters).

False, I'll call it now, that tomorrow will be a blow out.

I expected Alston or Nelson to go off tonight since I knew they would push the tempo much faster, and they did. Now Lakers will try to slow down the tempo a little bit more, get better positions, by actually paying attention to their point guards. I still think Lakers should only focus on Hedo and Howard instead of Lewis. I think a lot of plays Hedo get things going by playing a fast paced foward who could pass and shoot, so try to contain him and stop him from blowing up will be a key issue.

I liked what I saw from Bynum in the 1st half, I think if he can play a little bigger by either staying in the game longer or grabbing more rebounds, I see us winning it.

[RedBlackAttack]

LOL... I said Game 1 was an 'adoration'... I need sleep.

[Fatal9]

Classic Kobe tonight though. He's on his way to an incredible playoff run, hits insane shots in the first half and chokes away the game in the second half to let Magic back in the series.

Story of his career. He simmers, simmers but never brings it to a boil.

[Mrofir]

Fortunate win for the Magic.. shooting lights out to counter Kobe's ridiculous first half. Some late game what-ifs for the Lakers to even things out a bit helps the Magic psychologically too. Game 4 will be the determinant of whether this is a series or not. This was just the prerequisite.

[Lakers_Kobe_Fan]

People think with some comman sense......Orlando won...thats great...but other then laker haters and real magic fans...do u think your team will shoot 62.5% in 4 game to win the game?

The lakers were still in the game till the last second......

[RedBlackAttack]

Kobe still shot better than Lebron did in any of the three games in Orlando. Also, despite him choking, it was no where near the Lebron choke of 7 turnovers in a 10 minute span in game 4 (which Cleveland had wrapped up if he holds on to the ball). Not that I really care, but interesting to note that the OP didn't make threads about that, nor did half the board go into a frenzy calling it a choke.

First, you do care and you've made that abundantly clear. Secondly, LeBron played miserably in the final few minutes and the overtime period of that game. At the same time, he logged 49 minutes (which could be some kind of playoff record for a one overtime game) and hit the game tying free throws with 0.5 seconds left in regulation.

Completely different scenario for Kobe tonight and that should be clear to anyone and everyone.

LeBron has absolutely had some meltdowns in the last five minutes of playoff games in his career. Who the hell would dispute that? I just didn't see you jumping to his defense when there were multitudes of threads made after each one. In fact, if memory serves me, you were a driving force behind such threads.

Now, you have mostly defended Kobe after his performance tonight and YOU are the one who brought LeBron into this in an attempt to diminish Bryant's negative impact in the second half. No one said a word about LeBron until you showed up, but you still wonder why you are looked at as a troll?

Why even bring him into it?

[rfm767]

gay game, lakers better wrap up game 4 or else some unpleasant surprise might be ahead of us

[derman]

We would need another angle to tell. It doesn't look like Pau grabbing the net made the backboard shake.

LOL
and what exactly did made the backboard to shake ? c-lee's breath ?

he didnt just grab the net. he pushed hard the rim

[derman]

The NBA says the no call was correct:



The actual rule states:




So, did Gasol cause the rim to shake enough to make the ball have an unnatural bounce? Should the Magic be up 2-1 in this series right now (Watch the blue reflection)?

LINK: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playof...ory?id=4246830

Yes he did; the backboard shaked violently; evidence for this is the blue line; at exactly the moment the ball hit the backboard the backboard was shaking hard because of pau's hitting of the rim; pau did only not " touch the net" , he
hit the rim hard

that should have been called an goaltend

[D-Rose]

Yes he did; the backboard shaked violently; evidence for this is the blue line; at exactly the moment the ball hit the backboard the backboard was shaking hard because of pau's hitting of the rim; pau did only not " touch the net" , he
hit the rim hard

that should have been called an goaltend

so should the dwight one...they both cancel out...still OT

[RedBlackAttack]

People think with some comman sense......Orlando won...thats great...but other then laker haters and real magic fans...do u think your team will shoot 62.5% in 4 game to win the game?

The lakers were still in the game till the last second......

...because the Lakers shot 52-percent from the field, which is nothing to sneeze at. The Magic only shot 14 3-pointers. It isn't like they were chucking up a bunch of junk and it just happened to be falling. They were getting and making high percentage shots.

I'm not saying that the Magic are better than the Lakers or that they are going to win, but you can't just look at their FG% and decide that the Magic are over-matched and just had a good night.

Hell... The Magic shot 41-percent to the Lakers' 46-percent in Game 2 and they were literally in the game until the last half second. Do you think the Magic will shoot 41-percent from the field again? Maybe, maybe not.

Each game takes on a life of its own. The simple fact is that there have been three games in this series and two have been extraordinarily close, including an overtime win for LA.

These are two evenly matched teams... I stand by that.

[Peter Griffin]

LeBron James Fans in this thread! Freakin Sweet!

I havn't seen this much double-standard bitterness since OJ Simson put his son on punishment for smacking his Girl Friend!

[don juan de marco]

Gimme a break, Walton was decent in stretches tonight and was great in the first two games.

He's the perfect roleplayer for the triangle offense.

awww man someone is giving Luke Walton credit!! i must be going crazy. You sure ur not speaking of Bill Walton?



lol u must be a hardcore laker fan. Please admit our flaws. Puke Walton has always be a huge laker flaw