ORLANDO, Fla. — Lakers coach Phil Jackson delayed watching the entire tape of Game 3, preferring a few hours of sleep over reliving the misery of Tuesday night.
When his players finally watched the film Wednesday morning of their 108-104 loss to the Orlando Magic, something immediately jumped out at them.
“The final score,” guard Derek Fisher said.
Something else, too. A series of defensive lapses, mostly minor, some larger, but all correctable.
“There were some little things defensively, which every time you watch film, even when you win, there’s just always some things you see that you can do better,” Fisher said. “So there were just small things ... a rotation off here or there, defensively letting guys get back to the middle when we try to keep everything out of the middle.”
The Lakers better do something quickly to address those. They started to show some slippage on the defensive end in the second half of Game 2, then played some of the worst defense in NBA finals history Tuesday night.
Orlando shot 75 percent in the first half and 63 percent for the game, both finals records. All-Stars Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis each scored 21 points and Hedo Turkoglu had 18, but Jackson seemed more concerned with the way the Lakers covered Rafer Alston (20) and Mickael Pietrus (18), who had struggled in the first two games.
“We have to defend those guys,” Jackson said. “I thought that we were playing a little bit lax.”
Those problems didn’t just suddenly pop up in Game 3.
The Lakers seemed to have Orlando’s offense completely solved through the first six quarters of the series. The Magic shot just 30 percent, barely above the finals low, while dropping Game 1 by 25 points, then scored only 35 points on 32 percent shooting in the first half of Game 2.
Then Orlando made 11 of its 19 shots in the third quarter, and has hardly slowed down since.
“They just made adjustments to free guys up and they know their players that we’re trying to lock in on, Hedo being one of them, Rashard being the other,” Kobe Bryant said. “They’re doing great things to free them up and put them in a position to score and be effective. We have to do a better job of trying to take them out of there.”
The Lakers shut down the Magic in their 100-75 victory in Game 1 by forcing Howard to turn away from the middle of the lane, and double-teaming him when he was able to catch the ball in good position. That strategy worked because Orlando’s collection of 3-point shooters mostly misfired when Howard kicked the ball out.
Those players are now hitting their shots, forcing the Lakers to decide if they’re going to change the way they defend Howard.
“What they do is they execute well, and when they execute well, they give you an option,” Jackson said. “You either have to jam up the middle and hold up Howard, or else you have to give up an outside shot. Those are things that you have to make a choice between.
“It’s always about penetration, and if you get a team that’s making penetration either off the dribble or the pass, you’ll be in jeopardy. We have to slow that down, at least limit it at some level.”
Howard made 5-of-6 shots in Game 3 after hitting only one of his six attempts in the opener. Bryant acknowledged there was concern the Magic had figured out what the Lakers are doing to defend the center.
He also said the Magic are a team that can stay hot because they have so many shooters. There’s no reason to foresee Orlando slowing down if the Lakers don’t correct the woes they watched on tape Wednesday.
Fisher insists they can.
“What we saw were things that we can control,” he said. “There wasn’t anything that we saw where we feel like we can’t do anything about it.”
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