Game Rewind: Lakers Bench the Magic – Lakers 98, Magic 92

Behold the Laker juggernaut!  Orlando stood no chance tonight against the vaunted and feared Laker duo of… Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar?  Say WHAT?!?!?!

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The Lakers have All-Star talent out the wazoo, but somehow this much-anticipated rematch between last year’s NBA Finals combatants ended up decided by the much-maligned Laker bench (and in a good way, which was even more surprising).  The Lakers looked to have the game well in hand halfway through the second quarter, but the Magic came to life to cut the Laker lead from thirteen to five by the end of the half.  Things even started to look bleak for the Lakers when Orlando raced out to a nine-point lead to start the third quarter.  Just when all seemed lost… the bench happened!!!

Instead of looking to Kobe for a rescue, the Lakers instead used a barrage of threes and a flurry of steals from Brown and Farmar to tie the game up and then take the lead and never looked back again.  It certainly helped that the Orlando Magic just plum forgot to give the ball to Dwight Howard until it was too late in the fourth quarter.  Somehow Howard’s dominant 18-point first half just didn’t capture the attention of Stan Van Gundy who somehow thought it was smarter to watch Rashard Lewis shoot the Magic out of the game.

Say what you want about how much the Magic were struggling going into this game, but this certainly goes down in my book as a big win for the Lakers.  Not only did they defeat one of the NBA elite, but they did so without significant contributions from Kobe Bryant.  The Lakers should now be riding a crest of confidence as they get ready to embark on their epic eight-game road trip where their mettle shall truly be tested.  Tonight’s game was more like a practice test for this trip and everyone should be pleased to see the Lakers passed with flying colors.

• Shannon Brown’s performance can’t be overstated enough right now.  Not only did he score a team-high for the game with 22 points (a career-high for him), but he also energized the team as a whole on both ends of the floor.
• I wondered how Bynum would stack up against Dwight Howard tonight and while he looks to have clearly lost out to Howard in the box score, I actually though he did a much better job.  Most of Howard’s points came off dunks when he was left open when Bynum was forced to play help defense and then there were the two bank shot jumpers Howard hit.  Considering that I think Howard has made two jumpers in his entire NBA career, you can’t really blame Bynum for those four points.  Howard definitely still won the match-up, but Bynum didn’t exactly embarrass himself either.
• Don’t look now but Jordan Farmar is kind of on fire.  This was his third double-digit scoring game in the last five games.  It is like he finally remember that this is a contract year for him.

Lake Show Outtakes:

• Oh crap, Kobe looks broken again.  That 30-point game against the Clippers is looking more like an aberration now after watching Bryant go 4-for-19 tonight.  The rest of the team stepped up in this game, but if Kobe keeps playing like this, it is going to be far too much to ask for the bench to pour in 42 points every night.
• Ron Artest played 24 minutes tonight which is exactly 24 more minutes than I can remember him playing.  Of even more concern is that Ron-Ron was also got saddled with a minus-10 for the night.  I don’t mind him not scoring, but the defense is supposed to revolve around him, but tonight it seemed more like he was holding it back.
• This game should have been a blow out, by the way.  The Lakers defensive game plan of not letting the Magic beat them with three-pointers was working perfectly to start the game but then it was like they just stopped caring about defending the three-point line.  Orlando sparked their big 20-2 run to take the lead in large part because the Laker wings inexplicably decided to start over-committing on help defense down low.

Tags: Andrew Bynum, bench mob, Dwight Howard, Game Rewind, Jordan Farmar, Kobe Bryant, Orlando Magic, Rashard Lewis, Ron Artest, Shannon Brown, Stan Van Gundy