Game 1, Los Angeles. After falling behind by 20 points in the third quarter, not many of us felt the Los Angeles Lakers could come back to make it a close game, let alone win it. The Laker players, however, somehow found their groove and came back in miraculous fashion to beat the San Antonio Spurs in game one of the Western Conference Finals 89-85. How did they do it? By playing better basketball in the second half. Kobe Bryant, who only had two points in the first half, scored 25 points in the last two quarters in another stunning performance. Pau Gasol added 19 points and several others helped out, including bench players. Phil Jackson is a great coach, but he can't win games without the players. Last night the players showed up. A bright spot was Sasha Vujacic who came off the bench to score 10 points, including two of the Lakers' 4 three-point shots. If you look at the statistics for the game, both teams played pretty even. What hurt San Antonio was their outside shooting. The Spurs only made 5 threes (out of 20 shots) and they got beat in the paint 48-36. Individually, Manu Ginobili only made 3-13 field goal attempts for 10 points. Tim Duncan carried the load for the Spurs with 30 points and 18 rebounds. Tony Parker scored 18 and had 10 rebounds. I think they need to score more inside the paint, especially when their 3-pointers aren't going in. The S.A. bench needs to score more too. Los Angeles had better support from the bench. Besides Vujacic, Jordan Farmar had 8 points off the bench. Next: Game 2, Friday, Los Angeles, 9 p.m. ET (TNT).
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