NBA FINALS, GAME 1
Venue: Staples Center, Los Angeles Date: 5 June Tip-off: 0200 BST Coverage: Live on Setanta Sports 2, highlights on the BBC Sport website Watch Orlando Magic beat Cleveland Cavaliers to reach the NBA play-off final America may have been denied the dream match-up everybody may have wanted but, when the NBA finals get under way, Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic are out to make the world's basketball fans forget all about LeBron James. James and his Cleveland Cavaliers were fully expected to reach the finals after they compiled the best overall record during the NBA's 82-game regular season. There, "King James" was to meet Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers in a confrontation that would have gone a long way towards deciding which of the two is currently the game's most dominant player. That was certainly the way that advertisers - such as the shoe company which last month ran a nationwide TV campaign featuring puppets of the two players - saw the play-offs panning out. Unfortunately for them, Howard and the Magic had other ideas. Having beaten defending champions the Boston Celtics in the Conference semi-finals, they beat James and the Cavaliers 4-2 to win the Eastern Conference Championship and reach the best-of-seven finals series for the first time in 14 years.  | Don't let Kobe get going. He's tough when he gets going and he has a killer instinct |
The success was especially poignant for Howard, the NBA's defensive player of the year in 2008-09, but a man who is all too often left out of the Kobe-or-LeBron discussions about the identity of the current best player in the game. Howard, 23, wept on the bench in the closing minutes of Saturday's game six win over the Cavs, an emotional response which was in stark contrast to James' reaction - he was was criticised for storming off court at the end without shaking the hands of any Magic players. "I've been having dreams about this for the longest time," Howard told reporters. "And in the fourth quarter, it started to hit me that this was our chance. I had the towel over my head and the coach thought I was tired but I didn't want anybody to see the tears coming out." Instead of the Bryant-James finals, the temptation now is to paint this series as Bryant versus Howard. However, the style of Orlando's play makes them more of a team than the one-man show Cleveland certainly are and that the Lakers tend to be. Howard's chiselled 6ft 11in body is so unstoppable close to the basket that opponents have to concentrate on his presence, thus freeing up long-range shooters like Hedo Turkoglu, Mickael Pietrus, Rashard Lewis and Rafer Alston to attempt three-pointers. | 606: DEBATE |
Last summer, Turkoglu, playing for Turkey, destroyed Great Britain in a warm-up game for the European Championship qualifiers and GB coach Chris Finch has no doubt the 30-year-old forward could be one of the "x" factors in the finals. "Turkoglu is a deceptive player," said Finch. "He's obviously an extremely good shooter but what I found, going against him, is that he is far quicker than he looks and has good ball skills for a guy his size. "The Lakers also have a guy like that, Sasha Vujacic, who will be playing against us for Slovenia in the European finals this summer. "He's also potentially a great shooter and it's guys like these who often have decisive roles in play-off series." Nevertheless, all eyes, and cameras, will be on Bryant and Howard when Game One gets underway in Los Angeles on Thursday (or very early Friday if you're in the UK). And, while the respective coaches, Stan van Gundy of the Magic and LA's Phil Jackson, will stress team play, Howard is under no illusion about how to stop the Lakers. "Don't let Kobe get going," said Howard. "He's tough when he gets going and he has a killer instinct. The biggest thing with their team is when he gets rolling, everybody else feeds off him."
| 
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
Bookmark with:
What are these?