Thursday, May 21, 2009

Witnessing a little Magic

Despite 63 first half points, 49 points from LeBron, and a 16 point lead the Magic somehow found a way to pull out a victory and now it looks like we've got ourselves a series. Last night's win for the Magic showed how mentally tough they are. They started off slow giving up 33 first quarter points, LeBron got off for 26 of his 49 in the 1st half, and Turkoglu and Lewis were both nonfactors. Nevertheless, Orlando kept battling, a defensive stop here, a Howard dunk there, and then back to back threes from Pietrus and Lewis got them back into the game and forced LeBron to do it all on his own. By forcing LeBron to score on his own, the Magic took everyone else out of the game and challenged LeBron to beat them with no help. However, one thing that stood out last night was the fact that Cleveland can't match up with Orlando, using their normal rotation. Last night that had no answer at all for Dwight Howard or Rashard Lewis. Lewis got what he wanted in the second half because he had either Big Z or Varajeo on him, neither of which are used to guarding perimeter players. As the series goes on it will be a test of wills, does Cleveland change their rotation to match up with Orlando and risk not having their best players on the floor or do they stick with what has worked this entire season and try to impose their will on the game despite the match up problems that they will have to overcome?

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