Live Blog: 2009 NBA Finals, Game 3

10:34 pm - Ok, here we go. Sorry I'm late, but trivia duty called. We finished third, I don't want to talk about it. I'm here for the Finals, not for my trivia letdowns. Glad we cleared that up. 59-54 Magic, by the way.

10:38 pm - From what I saw while at trivia, Orlando looks much more comfortable at home. They have four guys in double-digits already and Mickael Pietrus doesn't look as scared as he did in Game 2. LA, on the other hand, looks lethargic and there doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency that was there when they were at home. Understandable when you're on the road for Game 3 after winning both of your games at home. This happens all the time. Kobe's been great, by the way. He has 21 already. And everyone knows he warms up in the 2nd half.

10:40 pm - Rafer Alston, ladies and gents. His disappearance in the first two games has really bogged down the Magic offense, including making Turkoglu the primary ballhandler in crunch time, making him less effective as a pure scorer. But Rafer has played well tonight, and thus, Orlando looks more comfortable. Imagine that.

10:42 pm - WOW. Courtney Lee just got big and slammed over Derek Fisher. Grown man move right there.

10:43 pm - Weird. Kobe gets fouled shooting a 3 (which was a clear foul by the way, no idea why Orlando was arguing) and misses the first two before sinking the third. That's not something you see every day.

10:44 pm - Two turnovers in a row by Orlando since the Lee dunk. This one turns into a Trevor Ariza 3 and all of a sudden, the Magic lead is 65-64.

10:45 pm - Ehhh, I don't like that. Kobe is just jostling for position and gets hit with an offensive foul. The Lakers have shown more energy this quarter and the last thing you want as a fan is for a bad call to stem the tide, so to speak. We'll hope this doesn't happen again.

10:50 pm - Skip to My Lou once again with a nice move. I'm telling you, when he plays well, this is an entirely different team. Much more smooth.

10:52 pm - Haha, Mark Jackson is funny. Alston pointed to him (New York City respect and all that) after his nice move, but when Rafer followed that up with a turnover on his next possession, Jackson, without missing a beat, said, "don't point at me know, Rafer." Hilarious.

10:55 pm - Gasol just put in an alley-oop from Fisher to make it 73-69. Despite all the energy Orlando has been showing, they're only up 4. That's got to be worrisome for Stan Van Gundy right?

10:56 pm - These Toyota Prius commercials that use people in costumes to represent various aspects of nature are beautiful. But are they cost-effective? I mean, if those are, in fact, real people making all of the motions, that's got to be expensive. Costumes, people, and choreography don't come cheap these days. Even in this economy. Granted, I'd have been in it for a pack of Starbursts and the rights to the costume afterward, but still.

11:01 pm - Big shot from Rashard Lewis. Pushing that lead from 5 to 8 is important. Not only does it make the game a three-possession affair; it also provides mental boost to see that you're almost up double-digits. He's been great this series. 77-69 Orlando.

11:03 pm - Remember when I complained earlier about a touch foul stemming a run? Yeah, this time it happened to Orlando. Jordan Farmar embellishes contact and draws a foul on Tony Battie. He converts both free throws to get the deficit back to 5.

11:04 pm - Make that "deficit back to 2" as Kobe Bryant drains a 3. He hasn't done much this quarter, but something tells me he's going to have a nice 4th. We shall see.

11:05 pm - Mark Jackson is funny again. After hearing that Shaq attempted 39 free throws in a game against his Indiana Pacers in the 2000 Finals, Jackson says, "that was just good officiating." Sarcasm at its best, my friends.

11:08 pm - Oh my, I just read that Tim Floyd resigned as USC's basketball coach. Wow, that's surprising. Yes, he's been under intense scrutiny lately for alleged violations, but I never thought he'd quit. Heck, he just interviewed at Arizona a couple months ago before returning to Los Angeles. Man, I didn't see that one coming. Who do they turn to now? This has "2008-2009 Indiana Hoosiers" written all over it.

11:10 pm - LOL. Doris Burke asks Stan Van Gundy what the difference between tonight and the other nights has been, and he says, in all seriousness, "I have no idea, I just know that the ball is going in tonight." That's awesome.

11:12 pm - Lamar Odom with a nice runner to make it 83-77 Magic. With Kobe on the bench to start the quarter, Odom would be wise to end his quiet night right now. The Lakers need him to be assertive.

11:13 pm - There's Odom again. Gets a block on one end (on Marcin Gortat nonetheless) and hits a step-back jumper on the other end to get the Magic lead back down to 6. If and Kobe both get hot this quarter, we might have a game on our hands. Until then, advantage Orlando in this one.

11:15 pm - And by "advantage Orlando" I really meant "Mickael Pietrus just hit an 18-foot turnaround to push the lead back to 8." Really, that's all I needed to say to let you know how things are going for the Magic tonight.

11:17 pm - Good win for the Orioles tonight. We've been STRUGGLING (yes, it deserves capitals) and needed something to get us going. Well, rookie Brad Bergesen decides to throw eight innings of shoutout ball, and the O's beat the Mariners 3-1. Of course, George Sherrill made it interesting in the 9th, but that's just what he does. No worries.

11:17 pm - There's Lewis again. He hits another shot that pushes the lead from two possessions to three. Those are big, especially in the 4th. 89-81 Orlando.

11:20 pm - The Magic go up by 10 on a Howard bucket, but that's not the most important part of that play. The most important part of that play is that Jeff Van Gundy just mentioned "Sprewell" as in Latrell Sprewell. I wonder what Spree is doing tonight. I need to research this further. I'll get back to you.

11:22 pm - Another aggressive move by Lamar Odom, and all of a sudden, it seems as if he's awake. Good news for the Lakers, but is it too late? He makes one free throw to make it 91-85 with just under 7 minutes to go.

11:23 pm - Pietrus makes a nice play. Steals the ball on one end and finishes with a pretty lay-in on the other. Eight-point lead for the Magic now...until Trevor Ariza drains a 3. Big shot. Big, big shot. 93-88 Orlando with 6:17 left in the 4th.

11:25 pm - When commercials come on that are supposed to have music and dialogue (such as movie previews) we're only getting the background music. It's weird. It really makes you wonder what the heck is going on in the commercials. Who knew dialogue was so important to a 30-second ad?

11:27 pm - Trevor Ariza draws a moving screen foul call on Dwight Howard. He hits the 3 to put them down 5, and then gets the turnover to get another possession, which Gasol converts into a deuce. 93-90 Orlando.

11:30 pm - There's Derek Fisher. I knew he'd show up at some point. He drains a triple and cuts the lead to 2. Huge shot from Fish.

11:33 pm - GREAT defensive play by Odom. With Derek Fisher having switched onto Rashard Lewis, the Magic were looking to exploit that advantage. Odom tips away the entry pass and corrals the loose ball which leads to a Kobe jumper on the other end. 99-97 Orlando. Buttholes are getting a little tight in O-town, by the way.

11:37 pm - For those of you on pins and needles...our audio has been fixed on the commercials. I know you were worried, and we appreciate your concern, but you can go back to focusing on the suspense of the game now. Thanks.

11:39 pm - Big time free throws from Gasol to tie the game at 99. And he looked as relaxed as he did at the beginning of the game. Impressive.

11:40 pm - Pietrus with a putback dunk to break the time. His athleticism is crazy. He got to the rim in like .000417 seconds. Really.

11:41 pm - Grown man move from Gasol. He dribbles from the top of the key to the hoop and makes a tough, tough layup. Nicely done. 102-101 Magic.

11:42 pm - Rashard Lewis with ANOTHER clutch shot this series. They're calling it a 3, but they'll have to review it. It looks like his foot was on the line, so make that a 2. Still, though, he's been great time after time when the Magic needed a big shot. 104-101 Magic (presumably, but I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself with the way the officiating has gone these entire playoffs) with just over 1 minute to play.

11:44 pm - It is indeed a 2, so the Magic lead by 3 with 1:06 to play. Here we go...

11:46 pm - Wow. Kobe makes a great play to draw a foul on Howard, but only converts one of the two free throws. So the deficit remains 2 points. Unbelievable that he's missed FIVE free throws tonight.

11:47 pm - So our audio problems have returned, but let me tell you, the trailer for "Public Enemies" still looks awesome, even without words. I'm pumped for that one.

11:49 pm - There's Odom defensively again. Lewis drives, trying to beat the shot clock, and Lamar shuts him down with a block. Great play.

11:50 pm - Kobe makes another bad play, trying to force the ball into the paint and losing the handle. Gasol gets it but Pietrus steals it away from him. Pietrus is fouled and makes both free throws. Very clutch play from him. You know, the exact opposite of what he was like in Los Angeles. 106-102 Orlando with 28.7 seconds to play.

11:53 pm - The Lakers come out of a timeout and look disoriented after Kobe misses a 3, so they call timeout with 16.3 seconds to go. Being down four doesn't normally require you to take a 3, but I think you have to now. There's just not enough time left to rely and missed free throws and trading possessions.

11:55 pm - The Lakers miss a ton of 3s, so Kobe just gets a rebound and scores with 0.5 seconds left. So after a foul by Bryant, people are trying to figure out if you can actually foul with a half-second left and have it called before the clock hits zero. Honestly, I don't think you can, but they've added 0.2 to the clock anyway. And now the folks at Amway Arena have begun shooting confetti from the rafters. Lovely. You can tell Orlando hasn't done this sort of thing in a while. I'm just saying.

11:57 pm - I agree with Jeff Van Gundy. A tip of the cap to the Lakers' effort tonight. Teams normally mail in Game 3 on the road after winning the first two at home, but LA brought it tonight. Had it not been for such a vast improvement in Orlando's play, they'd be up 3-0 right now. Game 4 is going to be fun; I'm looking forward to it.

11:59 pm - Rashard Lewis hits both free throws and Orlando wins 108-104. Tons of positives to be taken from this game by both teams. For Orlando: you won, Rafer Alston played well, the offense was much more smooth, the scoring was balanced and not entirely reliant on Rashard Lewis, and, once again, you won. For Los Angeles: Orlando played really well and still needed you to miss shots late to win, Lamar Odom didn't assert himself until late and you were still in it, Kobe played subpar (at least by his standards) and you still almost pulled it out. This series is about to go up a notch in terms of intensity. The Lakers don't feel like having it tied up going to a Game 5 in Orlando, and Orlando certainly doesn't want to go down 3-1, meaning they'd have to win BOTH games back in LA. Look out for Game 4. It's going to be full of energy on both sides, and hopefully will be just as entertaining as the last game and a half. So far, this series has been pretty fun. Let's hope that trend continues on Thursday. As always, Skip To My Lank will be here to live-blog (most of) it for you. Stay classy, good people.

~~ Lank