The Lakers survived a tough test, but beat the Magic, 101-96, in overtime.
The officiating was pretty awful in this game, especially in the first quarter and down the stretch. There was a series of calls late in the game that were all questionable and all went in the Lakers’ favor. Mickael Pietrus was called for a bogus foul on a Kobe Bryant drive, Hedo Turkoglu was called for a cheap offensive foul which wiped away a nice little jumper, and Lamar Odom drilled Courtney Lee on his driving layup attempt with less than ten seconds to play in regulation, and no foul was called. Orlando’s last best chance to win was Lee’s alley-oop attempt with 0.6 seconds to play, but the lob pass was a little too deep and he was unable to convert the shot.
The Lakers executed well in overtime, and Odom uncharacteristically made two clutch free throws to put the Lakers up by five with 0:22 to play. J.J. Redick and Rashard Lewis had a couple of tough, contested three point attempts to cut into the lead, but time expired with a pair of misses.
I can’t help but leave this game thinking that if not for the help from the officials, the Lakers would have lost this game in regulation. I guess that’s just home court advantage, but it really seemed like the refs took over the game down the stretch instead of letting the players battle it out.
Kobe had 29 points, eight assists, four rebounds and seven turnovers. Pau Gasol added 24 points and 10 boards, and Odom once again had a good game off the bench, posting 19 points and eight boards. If he keeps playing like this, the Lakers will have to re-sign him this offseason.
Orlando got great play from Lewis (34 points) and Turkoglu (22 points), and while Dwight Howard had 17 points, 16 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and four steals, he also had seven turnovers, which is waaaaaaay too many for a big man. He spent a lot of time complaining to the refs when he lost the ball instead of getting back on defense.
The problem for the Magic is that they aren’t getting much production from their supporting cast. The rest of the Magic went 8 for 31 from the field, lowlighted by Rafer Alston’s 1 for 8 performance. He seems bothered by Jameer Nelson’s presence, but the Magic need a fourth and fifth guy to make some shots.
The Lakers are doing a good job of rotating and keeping the Magic from getting easy baskets, but Orlando had a ton of open shots in the first half and just couldn’t convert.
