Kobe Did Work – Lakers Crush Magic 100-75

Before last night three players in NBA history had scored 40+, had 8+ rebounds and 8+ assists: Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West and Michael Jordan. Now there are four in that elite club. Kobe scored 40 and added 8 boards and 8 dimes in a dominant performance. The Black Mamba was scoring virtually every way a player can score: post-ups, drives, pull-ups, fadeaways, spot up 3s, everything. He some scoring help from Gasol, who had 16, and Odom, who had 11. Walton, Fisher and Bynum chipped in with 9 apiece. But Kobe didn’t really need much help on offense last night, it’s the defensive end where his teammates really contributed.

The Magic could not score to save their lives in Game 1. They ended the game shooting 29.9% from the field. Their starters had the following shooting numbers: Dwight Howard 1-6, Hedo Turkoglu 3-11, Rashard Lewis 2-10, Courtney Lee 3-10, Rafer Alston 2-9. That’s unbelievably bad. Lee’s 30% from the field was tops for any Magic starter. Now some of that, maybe even a lot of that, was the result of excellent Lakers defense. They threw a lot of different looks at Howard, fronting him, doubling, cheating over but not fully doubling, and some one-on-one looks when Bynum was on the floor. It was surprising how aggressive they were in preventing touches. And when Dwight could get a shot off he was hacked. Howard had only 6 field goal attempts but got to the line 16 times.

All the focus on Howard did result in a number of wide open looks from deep, but the Magic just couldn’t convert. They were 8-23 on three pointers, but 3 of those makes came late in the game when it was already a blowout. They were missing them when it mattered. Kobe’s extraordinary performance and the Magic’s woeful offense were the key storylines of Game 1, but there were a number of other interesting developments as well.

In the first quarter the Magic actually looked pretty good. Hedo was dictating play and made a couple shots. Kobe was posting up Lee on every Lakers possession, but finished the quarter only 3-9. Jameer Nelson made his return to the court to start the second quarter, and actually looked extremely good in his minutes out there. He struggled in the second half, but I was definitely pleasantly surprised by his production and how he looked on the court. He made a couple of beautiful passes and was running the pick-and-roll extremely well.

Luke Walton played some great minutes for the Lakers, taking Courtney Lee into the post and scoring. Lee was on the wrong end of a lot of stats tonight, as 32 of Kobe’s 40 came when Lee was guarding him. That’s surprising because Lee and Pietrus basically split the minutes checking Kobe Bryant. I would not be surprised at all to see Pietrus start in this series for exactly that reason.

The Magic countered the length of the Lakers in the second quarter by playing Howard and Battie together for a few minutes; Gortat and Howard were on the court at the same time for a few minutes as well. The combos were not particularly effective on either end, but really nothing was effective for the Magic.

Phil Jackson coached teams are 43-0 after winning Game 1, so the news just gets worse and worse for the Magic. Also, Kobe had not scored 40 in a Finals game until last night.