LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Humiliated after losing last year’s NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers are looking for redemption when they lock horns with the Orlando Magic in this season’s best-of-seven finale.
The Western Conference champion Lakers, back in the finals for a 30th time as a franchise, host the Magic in tomorrow’s Game One in downtown Los Angeles.
“Redemption, we use that word all the time,” Lakers All-Star guard Kobe Bryant told reporters at the team’s training facility in El Segundo on Monday. “It’s a word that I’m familiar with.
“It’s tough for a team that goes to the NBA Finals to get back there the next year. We managed to do it somehow and now we’ve just got to make the most of it.”
Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who is bidding for a record 10th NBA Championship, agreed his team were desperate to make amends for their 131-92 demolition by Boston in Game Six last year.
“We’re just looking at this as something to redeem last year’s loss,” Jackson said. “We know what it feels like to lose and we want to come out and amend that.”
This year’s finals feature an intriguing match-up, pitting the supreme closer Bryant and the Lakers’ renowned triangle offense against the inside threat of Dwight Howard and the outside-shooting Magic.
“It goes from a completely different series to Orlando,” Bryant said of the Denver Nuggets, the Lakers’ opponents in the Western Conference finals.
“Carmelo (Anthony) was going to hit you, he was going to bang you. Now it goes to Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis who are equally as dangerous, just different styles.
“We’re going to have our work cut out. It’s another team, a different situation. We have quite a bit of work though to get ready for this series.”
The biggest threat facing the Lakers is Howard, who scored a playoff career-best 40 points on Saturday when the Magic beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 103-90 to clinch the Eastern Conference championship in six games.
Jackson hinted that Howard could be guarded at various times in the finals by each of his seven-foot tall centers — Andrew Bynum, Spaniard Pau Gasol and DJ Mbenga.
“We have three centers and we are real comfortable with that,” Jackson said. “Three big guys that have solid bodies.”
Jackson believed Bynum had steadily improved during the playoffs, despite not having regained full mobility following his return from a knee injury.
“Andrew knows a little bit more about his role, being able to plug the middle, being the stopper back there physically, what he has to do,” he said.
“Last Friday night, he had to take two early fouls just to stop penetration. And even though he sacrifices himself, he knows that’s part of his role.”
Bryant, seeking a fourth NBA Championship ring in his sixth finals appearance, felt the Lakers had become a much improved team over the last 12 months.
“Although we gained a lot of experience last season, this post-season has been tougher, more challenging,” he said of a Lakers unit that beat the Utah Jazz in five games, the Houston Rockets in seven and the Nuggets in six.
“We have matured a lot more because of that.”
