“Got to believe in magic, tell me how two people find each other in a world that’s full of strangers”. “You can do magic, you can have anything that you desire”. Those were lines from the hit songs in the 1980s by David Pomeranz and America, respectively. Nope, we are not talking here about retro music but everyone can’t help sing that tune nowadays in praise of the Orlando Magic.
After 14 long years, the Disney outfit is back in the final dance and will start their best-of-seven NBA championship series versus Kobe Bryant and his fearsome band of “lala boyz” on Thursday night (Friday morning, Manila time) at the Staples Center.
The Magic stole the thunder from the heavy favorite Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals, shocking and bringing down 2009 NBA MVP LBJ and his proud Cavaliers in six grueling games. Nobody gave the Magic a chance of scoring an upset over the rampaging Cavs, which swept the Detroit Pistons and the Atlanta Hawks in the first two rounds of the 2009 playoffs. They handed Cleveland their first taste of defeat in game one and from then on, there’s no stopping the Magic in their destiny towards the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Now they are ready to challenge the Western Conference champs Los Angeles Lakers in what is expected to be one hell of a final series. Even though the Lakers finished as the number one seed in the West after regular season and the Magic third in the East, Orlando swept their two regular season meetings. The main match-up to watch out for is the Dwight Howard-Kobe Bryant duel. If both players were able to off-set each other in the series then it will all boil down to the battle of their respective back-ups. Bryant is expected to get a lot of support from Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher, Trevor Ariza, Luke Walton and Sasha Vujacic. Howard on the other hand will count on Rashard Lewis, Rafer Alston, Hedo Turkoglu, Mickael Pietrus, Courtney Lee and JJ Reddick.
If you think you’ve seen enough of first-hand thrillers in the 2009 playoffs then wait until the hostilities fire-off for all the marbles between the best of the East and the elite of the West. One thing for sure, this is gonna be a humdinger of a series so let’s get it on!
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This is my centennial article posted on this blogsite. How time flies since I started this NBA corner on April 9, 2008. My love for the game will not diminish even a single bit and expect more fireworks in the next one hundred articles to be posted. Thank you very much to all the readers and followers of Boyet’s NBA Corner.
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