Good Lord are these Orlando Magic frustrating. At their best, they play beautiful basketball. At their worst, they make me curse the injury gods for depriving the Celtics of so many key players.
Last night down the stretch Orlando did its very best to give away Game 4 — a game that was, from their perspective, a must-win home game. Let’s review, shall we?
- Up five in the closing minutes, Rashard Lewis’ game-long struggles continue when he misses a short pull-up jumper that might well have iced the game.
- The Lakers, then, get a run-out and Mikael Pietrus doesn’t sprint back, helping Pau Gasol get an open dunk to cut the lead to three.
- Rolling to the hoop, Dwight Howard catches the ball high and brings it down to his waist, allowing the deceptively strong Kobe Bryant to wrap him up instead of getting an easy dunk and potential three-point play.
- Howard makes it a no-point play by missing both free throws. Either one would have pushed the lead to four points with 11 seconds left and all but clinched the game.
- Up three as the Lakers bring the ball the length of the court, Orlando doesn’t come close to fouling to preempt a potential tying 3-pointer.
- Jameer Nelson, tonight’s beneficiary of Stan Van Gundy’s bizarrely malleable rotation, sags several feet off the 3-point line as Derek Fisher crosses half-court, allowing the Lakers veteran space to tie the score with a 3-pointer. (Derek Fisher: Right place, right time, yet again. What an oddly celebrated player. These days he’s not even league-average.)
- Left with time for a final play, Orlando manages to get the ball not to inbounder Hedo Turkoglu or Lewis in the corner or Howard down low, but to Pietrus, who unsurprisingly can’t create anything but a long and sadly off-target leaner as the regulation buzzer sounds.
Sigh.
