Derek Fisher knew what was coming.
The Orlando Magic trailed the Los Angeles Lakers 92-91 in Game Two of the NBA Finals with less than two minutes remaining in overtime. The Magic were threatening to retake the lead, but guard JJ Reddick was trapped in the post as Orlando center Dwight Howard rolled off a screen toward the basket. D-Fish could see in Reddick’s eyes what was about to happen next, as quoted on ESPN.com:
“I read J.J.’s eyes and I knew he was going to try and make that hook pass behind to Howard. I’ve made that play myself a couple of times, you know, where you have that big guy rolling behind you that way. I just slid over and read his eyes and the ball, I think, bounced off Dwight’s legs as I got a hand in there.”
 Fish floats to the hoop, and Orlando’s Dwight Howard is powerless to stop him (Getty Images). |
Derek scooped up the loose ball and sped down the floor, driving toward the bucket. Magic forward Hedo Turkgolu impeded him from scoring, but Fish drew a foul and sank two free throws to give a LA a 94-91 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish, en route to a 101-96 victory.
“I just tried to go down and create some contact because I knew I had Turkoglu backing up.”
In postgame, D-Fish didn’t care about the way the victory looked, just that it was a victory, as quoted on ESPN.com:
“When you win a game in the Finals, regardless of how it looked out there, you earned it.”
The Lakers now lead the best-of-seven series 2-0.
No. 2 finished with 12 points, three assists, a rebound and three steals in 41 minutes, his largest chunk of playing time since January.
“It was good to be able to have some opportunities to get in the lane and make plays,” Fish said, as quoted by the Daily News.”
After the game, Lakers coach Phil Jackson spoke about a plan for Fish that he instituted during the season:
“Well, you know, this is a reason why Derek has been playing 24 to 28 minutes during the course of the season, so that he could have this type of minutes during the playoffs. He’s capable of playing. It’s recovery time that’s necessary for him. We know how valuable he is just for his heady play out there and his ability to organize our game and keep everything in flow. So that was important for us to have him out there.”
Derek is happy to play as much as needed, to keep the Lakers moving toward that ultimate goal that now sits only two wins away.
Whatever it takes at this point. In an overtime game with a total of 53 minutes, if it was a 48-minute game and I played 36, that wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I think we recognize that in order for us to play at the highest level that we’re capable of playing, it takes many contributions and that’s what we’d love to have.
It’s really about managing yourself mentally more than physically. You’ve trained for a long time to get into a position where you have an opportunity to win a championship. As we thankfully got into that overtime, that’s what I kept telling myself. “Five more minutes.” Being the best is not supposed to be easy and these are the type of games that make it memorable when you’re telling the stories to your grandkids, 20-30 years from now. You can exaggerate even more about how fun it was to play in tonight’s game.
VERSATILE SHOOTER
In scoring his 12 points, D-Fish found the bottom of the bucket in all manners.
In the first, he knocked down a quarter-closing two-point jumper off a Kobe Bryant dish to knot the score at 15.
After sitting for the first six minutes of the second, Derek entered the game with 5:54 to go and the score tied at 26. Trevor Ariza knocked down a three to make it 29-26 and Fish followed suit off another Kobe pass, sinking a corner three to give LA their largest lead of the game.
“He’s been here so many times, so anything he’s done he’s been there before,” Lakers swingman Ariza said, as quoted in the Daily News. “He’s a veteran.”
In the third, Fish would come up with another clutch shot with under a minute to go. The Lakers trailed 63-60 with the Magic threatening to carry momentum into the fourth quarter. But Kobe knew where to go with the ball when the Lakers needed a spark. He once again passed to D-Fish, who tied the score in a flash by burying a three from the right wing. The Magic would make the final shot in the quarter, but Derek’s three saved the Lakers from falling behind by more than a possession.
After the game, Kobe talked about what it means to have a teammate as clutch as Fish, as quoted on Lakers.com:
“Derek is a professional, he’s going to keep on coming all the time. If he’s not shooting the ball well, it’s not going to affect him. It’s not going to affect the next shot, and he’s going to continue to shoot the ball and play with great energy and play with great confidence.”
As had been the case all game, the teams once again traded leads for the duration of the fourth. No. 2 scored on a driving layup, weaving between a pair of Magic defenders to tie it at 77.
However with less than a minute to go, Hedo Turkgolu hit a shot to give the Magic an 88-86 lead and put LA seconds away from defeat.
Back on the Lakers end of the floor and trailing by two with 33 seconds to go, Fish drove the lane again. But instead of looking for a shot, he used a head fake to open up a path for Pau Gasol. Dwight Howard got a hand on Derek’s pass, but Gasol corralled the rock and chipped it in to tie the score at 88.
“I think Fish is a catalyst,” Phil Jackson said as quoted in the LA Daily News. “He came back and assumed the role as captain and co-captain and he holds a lot of sway with players, talks to them a lot about their sacrifice, their role, what they have to do and it really keeps things in line out there.”
After his consistent contributions in regulation, it was the steal in overtime and subsequent free throws that gave Derek his final points. More importantly it showed that the Lakers possessed an ability to adjust and stop something that had been hurting them all game, as quoted in the Daily News:
“That was a play that had been causing us a lot of difficulty, in the second half in particular,” Fisher said. “Howard was setting screen rolls and rolling down the floor. I was on the weak side when the screen started. The way the play was unfolding with Howard rolling down the lane, there wasn’t anybody on that side of the floor really to stop it, so I just tried to slide to the middle and I read J.J.’s eyes.”
HITTING THEIR STRIDE
Last season, the Lakers rolled through the Western Conference and into the Finals, without hitting a bump. Then, when met with adversity against the Celtics, they couldn’t overcome it.
This season, adversity has come time and time again. Each time the Lakers have met it with a heavy hand and kept on going. Now up 2-0 in the series, with four consecutive wins on their ledger, it begs the question, have the Lakers found “it”?
It’s a question that Derek has wondered about himself, as quoted in the Ventura County Star:
“As I was driving in this morning, I was thinking about it,” Fisher said after the Lakers practiced at Staples Center on Friday, the day after their 100-75 win in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Game 2 is Sunday."
“I think this postseason has been about us learning about ourselves and not really so much about who we’re playing against."
“I mean, Houston pushed us to the brink, and Denver was really physical and back and forth. But I don’t know if it’s ever been about the opponent, and I think that’s what we found out in the Houston series and the Denver series when it really finally clicked for us."
“As much time as we spend watching film and talking and preparing about how to do this and stop this and that, if we just do the things that we practice every day and talk about for ourselves, then we could care less who the opponent is. Because if you’re operating at your best, the way our team is constructed, the opponent is irrelevant."
“In team sports it’s rare that you can be in a space where if you do the things you’re capable of doing, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing. And that’s what we’ve been focused on, is the accountability of ourselves.”
NEXT UP
The Lakers get Monday to travel before the NBA Finals resume on Tuesday night in Orlando. The Lakers will be looking to push Orlando to the brink with a victory in Game 3, with tip-off scheduled for 6 p.m. PST. All the action can be seen live on ABC.
RELATED STORIES
Magic vs Lakers Box Score (ESPN.com, June 7, 2009)
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Daily Dime (ESPN.com, June 8, 2009)
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