NBA Finals Game 4 Journal

5:56 - I want to make it clear that I am rooting for LA because I can't stand Orlando's fanbase. A large majority of them probably don't realize that their team is even in the Finals because they're too busy buying Mickey Ears at DisneyWorld.

And you know what? They use the theme song to CSI for introductions, and had a MC who had a checkered suit that only a guy who still lived with his mom would wear. And the pregame intros were rather quiet. Remember when Seattle was in the Finals and you couldn't here the PA Announcer before the game? Oh yeah but they don't have a team anymore. No I'm not bitter... not in the least.

6:00 - They just showed a montage of NBA Champions and I think the Spurs got shown for roughly .02 seconds. I'm so glad the league is sweeping them under the rug as if their championships never happened.

6:06 - Considering the Dallas Cowboys reputation with the the structure strength of their buildings, do you really want the 2010 All-Star Game being played at Texas Stadium.

6:10 - Game starts, and they talk about how Kobe Bryant looked tired in the last Finals game - even though he was pretty much their entire offense in the first half of that game. How can anyone be "tired" is this day and age with luxury hotels, mega-conditioning, and plush conditions all around. It's not like he had to get off his construction worker job for the day to play basketball.

6:13 - Dwight Howard -- looks like what some football players want to look like with their shoulder pads on -- without any such assistance.

6:15 - Lamar Odom checks into the game. I really enjoy watching this guy play, I'm so glad he could finish his Butterfinger in time for the game.

6:21 - Commercial break shows Adam Sandler in a movie called "Funny People" ... how ironic.

6:24 - A shot of Amway Arena, does that place have the smallest parking lot in the NBA. I count three mini-vans, whatever Tiger Woods drove in on and Dwight Howard's groupie-wagon. That's it. Where does everyone else park? The Popeye's parking lot?

6:28 - Dwight Howard's parking spot must be at the free throw line because that's where he's been at for the entire game.

6:29 - Some guy from Congo checks in for the Lakers, meanwhile Adam Morrison doesn't make the playoff roster.

6:31 - With the score 18-15 Magic, Trevor Ariza gets called for a technical. In the first quarter. For an emotional outburst. Pace yourself. You'll be re-arranged JJ Reddick's facial structure by the third.

6:33 - Courtney Cox's latest project... Cougar Town! Just what I want to watch, old 40-year women hit on young guys! I can do that by going to a Spokane bar, so why would I need to watch this on TV?!?!?! (By the way I got groped by a Cougar down in Tri-Cities during the Shock game. Long story. Very Akward. And Weird)

6:33 - Stan Van Gundy quotes Greg Popavich during the pregame talk in some footage shown to us by ESPN. I wonder if Stan will be sporting the serial killer beard by game six.

6:37 - Riddle me this. So if the Lakers win the NBA Championship, Luke Walton will officially have more championship rings than Lebron James. Wow.

6:39 - Here's some insight - Orlando complains a lot about the calls... as in every single one.

6:44 - End of first quarter and we have our first WNBA Commercial, and Phil Jackson calls the officiating bogus. All right! Three more quarters to go of this.

6:50 - J.J. Reddick is playing well ... and I just wrote that.

6:56 - 37-27 Rashard Lewis hits a three to give Orlando its biggest lead of the series (they would lead by as much as 12 in the game). That's what you get for leaving the best 3 point shooter on the X-box version of NBA Jam open. Seriously.

6:56 - Another reason I hate Orlando fans. Those handclapper noise makers. ITS CALLED YOUR HANDS! SLAP THEM TOGETHER!!! How lazy has America gotten?

7:03 - Kobe's pregame interview shown by ESPN ends with Jeff Van Gundy saying that he sounds like a coach. Good god, if that happened not only would I be glued to my tv set for every single game but I think we would see the first ever occurance of the coach electing himself to take the technical foul free throw shot.

7:10 - HALFTIME

7:22 49-37 Magic, just for reference

7:47 - 51-44 Magic, the Lakers have definitely picked it up and Trevor Ariza can't miss.

7:55 - 55-54 LA's first lead.

7:59 - Adam Morrison sighting! He's in a bible salesman suit awkwardly high fiving Trevor Ariza, who doesn't actually know his name and wonders why Morrison is trying to get him to buy five copies of the Scientology Fundamentals.

8:02 - Chris Tucker has gotten fat. AND GEEZUZ! IS THAT TIGER WOOD'S WIFE? Holy hotness. I guess that is what you get when you're the best golfer on the planet. Ever.

8:05 - Magic commit their 15th turnover. Hey it's like the late 90s Seattle Seahawks!

8:07 - Things get physical, Howard grabs Kobe from behind, tempers flare, words are spoken and it's at this point that I realized that the refs need to let these guys play and stop freaking out every time there's any sort of contact. Howard and Kobe were members of the USA Gold Medal team. They're friends. They're playing for an NBA Championship so things are going to get chippy but at the end of the day, they're still going to be friends. So don't get your panties all in a twist when these hyper-competitive guys start speaking words to one another.

8:18 - Derek Fisher is still in the league?

8:20 - I love the random Kobe "I'm MAD!" cuts that ESPN does at random moments of the game.

8:37 - Jameer Nelson makes his first good play of the game with four minutes to go in the entire game. A pass to Howard for the dunk. Boy, I'm sure the Magic are glad he's finally coming around eh? Facing a possible 3-1 deficit and Nelson can pass now? Wowee!

8:49 - Three pointer, three pointer, three pointer...

8:50 - Dwight Howard misses both free throws. Yowza. This will come back to bite the Magic. That would have iced the game and instead it's 87-84 with 10.8 seconds to go. Orlando leads

8:53 - Derek Fisher is in fact, still in the league. Despite being 0-5 in the game from behind the three point line, he his a three-pointer with four seconds to go.

OVERTIME -Time for me to get my antacid pills

9:00 - Last Finals to have two overtime games? Boston vs. LA in 1984. That says something about where the NBA is right now as a league. So entertaining.

9:04 - Pau Gasol has the best "WHAAAAT?!?!" face. He must react wonderfully when his girlfriend tells him that she's pregnant or has 15 aliases.

9:06 - Second WNBA ad... and it's funny that they show them playing in packed Arenas.

9:09 - DEREK FISHER FOR THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ... and did anyone notice Jameer Nelson get hit by Kobe Bryant's elbow of fury when he passed it out to Fisher? Me neither.

(Is this 2002 all over again with Fisher hitting big threes for the Lakeshow? Should I be listening to 98 degrees and Outkast? Can I get a copy of "The Spy Who Shagged Me"?

9:12 - 96-91 Pau Gasol breakaway dunk and he proceeds to akwardly chest bump everyone on the floor, even Adam Morrison, who drops the bibles he's selling. Game is over... now they just need to run out the clock.

9:14 - Gasol gets another bucket but is hard fouled by Pietrus. A very cheap shot by him because the only reason Gasol went for the bucket was because the Magic were still defending hard even though there was like three seconds left. They got chippy afterward, I'm pretty sure Gasol called Pietrus a "Mother Goose" or something like that.

99-91 Lakers win.

And Derek Fisher has that "I'm dating your hot ex-girlfriend" grin going on.

Reasons why you're still single... you're a Orlando Magic fan

If you're celebrating the fact that the Orlando Magic are back in the NBA Finals after winning the third game... don't. They're still down 2-1, they still had to shoot a disgusting 62 percent from the field and they still eeked out a victory over the Lakers. If Los Angeles makes their free throws, its a much different game.

And don't even talk to me about respecting the Magic when their own fans don't show up all regular season, making Amway Arena quieter than a church and then suddenly when they're in the playoffs and the Finals, the place becomes a "madhouse."

You're way too busy front-running to be having a girlfriend.

Kobe doin' work

Some people may not be happy about the Lakers being up 2-0 on the Orlando Magic, but I absolutely love it. Here's why:

(1) With the next three games in Orlando, I don't think this series is over in five games. People really can't undersell home court advantage for the Magic. It's not over, it's about to get really interesting.

(2) The Magic will still lose though, mainly because of all the bandwagon fans from their own city that jumped on board. I'm still convinced that most people in that city thought the Magic were their hockey team until about two weeks ago.

(3) Orlando columnists are annoying. As in they can't write. As in there's a reason newspapers are going out of business.

(4) What does the Kobe Face do when he wins his fourth title? Explode?

(5) We won't have to hear the "You never believed in us, but our team showed you!" from a bandwagon Magic fan who's actually wearing a Lebron jersey.

Let's go Black Mamba!

Has anyone noticed how Kobe Bryants muppet sounds and looks nothing like him?

I love Kobe Bryant right now.

Not only does the Game 1 victory by the Lakers allow me to leave work tomorrow thanks to a victory by a shrewd bet, but have you seen the Lebron-Kobe muppet commercials? Amazingly funny even though the Kobe muppet looks more like Tim Meadows.

But, like every rational NBA fan, I realize there's some baggage that comes with the black mamba, that's why I've decided to translate some of the NBA Finals post-Game 1 quotes for your reading pleasure.

Here's what they really meant...

"I just want it so bad, that's all," Bryant said. "I just want it really bad."

(I just want a bus to hit Shaq. That's all I'm asking.)

"This is a resilient team," he said. "They've been through a lot of adverse situations before. This is nothing new to them. We've got to forget about this and move on."

(Thanks for playing Orlando, if you even think about making this a series I will Kill Bill your a** so quickly, you'll all look like Hedo Turkoglu)

"We've never had a shooting night this bad," Howard said. "We've just got to come out and play a lot harder than we did tonight."

(And I've not got to go work on my lats and shoulder muscles. See you all in the gym!)

"He was great. He was tremendous," said Van Gundy, who felt his team did a poor job defending the Lakers' pick and roll. "We were giving him too much space on his pull-up jumpers and he did a good job of attacking us. I know this: We are a lot better than we showed."

(Good god, how the hell do we stop Kobe Bryant? Where are Tonya Harding's bodyguards when you need them?)

"We've just got to keep our foot on the gas and keep our head down and just keep on working," Bryant said.

(I'm going to rip Dwight Howard's face off and wear it a la Hannibal from "Silience of the Lambs" - hellloooo Claurice....)

... On second thought, I don't like Kobe Bryant

10 Things you should know about Orlando Magic Fans...

(1) They're wearing a "Orlando Magic, est. when they beat the Cavs in the Eastern Conference Finals 2009" t-shirt.

(2) They think the Magic play in the XFL. And Larry Bird was a singer.

(3) They thing the shot clock is actually counting down to a point where they'll drop candy from the ceiling of the arena.

(4) They think Ron Jeremy is coaching their team.

(5) They think that if they win the NBA Finals, they get to play in the Super Bowl.

(6) They liked all the albums Michael Jordan released in the 1980s before he got all weird and liked little boys.

(7) They wondering what the pitching rotation for the next five days will be for the Magic and who will be leading off.

(8) They ask you when Brett Favre is going to come out retirement to play for them.

(9) They wonder why Dwight Howard isn't on NBA Jam: Tournament Edition.

(By the way, how amazing would it be to have Lebron and Dwight Howard on NBA Jam. I can't even imagine the rankings, it would be quite surreal. Somebody needs to come out with a game mod.)

(10) They can't wait for their team to finally hoist the Stanley Cup.

What the NBA Finals mean to Kobe

There's been a lot of talk about how Kobe Bryant will be cementing his legacy if he wins a fourth NBA Finals ring, his first without Shaq. 

Wait, isn't he already going to go down as one of the best players ever to wear a Lakers uniform?

They're saying that he will be a man possessed in this series, somebody with everything to gain and everything to lose.

Well duh. 

Remember how Kobe and Lakers were the favorites against Boston last year? Yeah that went well. Kobe is probably going to be out of his mind to make sure that doesn't happen again.

But really, does not winning another NBA Championship tarnish his legacy that much?

I mean we've already thrown out the golden boy moniker thanks to an incident in a Denver hotel room and his squabbling with Shaq (which self-destructed the Lakers). So he's not going to go down in history with the same sheen or gloss as say Jordan, Magic or Bird. He's not going to go down as the best player ever (that's a toss up between Jordan and what Lebron will do in the next 10 years) but he's certianly going to be in the conversation.

Ask anyone in the NBA about Kobe and they'll have nothing but excellent things to say about him as a player. He's one of the best, if not the best player we've seen in the post-Jordan generation. Lebron will eventually take that crown here (bad joke) if he hasn't already, but to deny Kobe's greatness between the Jordan and King James-era would just be stupid.

When it comes to being a competitor, Kobe's no. 1, and another NBA title will be nice on the resume but we aren't going to footnote him if he doesn't win here. So all this talk about legacy and what it means it's pretty silly considering marketing agencies are probably already setting up their Kobe ads for next year. And please, make a more Kobe-ish muppet this time.

Sure we'll look back and say "Kobe never won without Shaq" but don't we already say "Jordan never won without Pippen?"

I mean what exactly is the difference between three and four championships other than buying another ring case. Brett Favre only won one Super Bowl (like they're apparently easy to win?) and that does not lessen his legacy. 

Kobe's won three as part of one of the greatest teams in NBA history - and you're telling me he has to win another to reach the next pantheon.

Please, he's already there. He's just working for a little more leg room now.

Epic Photo: Celebrities at the NBA Finals

What are they thinking in this picture?

Sylvester Stallone -- HEY UH WAAAAA, HOLD YEAH, ADRRRIEEENEEEE, HEY YA KNOW? I LIKE KITTY KATS. WHOAH, DRAGGGGOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Eddie Murphy -- Man these are great seats, I'm sitting right next to Steven Spielberg, maybe I can get in one of his movies and revive my flatlining career. Or at least something that doesn't include me providing a voice for a talking Donkey.

Steven Spielberg -- I got it! Eddie Murphy as Indiana Jones' son in Indy 5. It's golden. I can do anything I want because I'm Steven Spielberg and people will still come and watch my movies. It's genius.