No two seasons are alike, so in defending a title finding the balance between sticking with what works and keeping things fresh can be tricky. Before Wednesday night's successful opening to the preseason, Lamar Odom made it clear talking to the media that having found a championship formula, the Lakers have every intention of reproducing it, right down to keeping everyone's spot on the bus exactly the same. (Ron Artest slides into TA's spot, no surprise.) It's not a question of superstition, but habit and routine. On a personal level, he's long since resolved any issues about coming off the bench. "I wouldn't change it," he said. "We won a championship. I'll keep it the same."

Identical routines, maybe, but the addition of Artest can help create new things to focus on in practice, new adjustments in games, and so on. Could help keep the collective mind sharp in what is always a very long march to the postseason.

Other notes:

The "morning after" reaction to Lakers Media Day (should you lack the will to scroll down, you can find our coverage here, here, here, here, and here) was, not surprisingly, centered around the Hollywood circus that descended on El Segundo Tuesday afternoon. To the point that actual basketball issues, little trifles like Kobe Bryant's contract extension- not yet signed but moving in the right direction- went virtually unnoticed.

Partially because nobody believes it won't get done, and also because between Lamar Odom's wedding and Ron Artest's arrival, many people may not have thought to ask.

(For more on Media Day and heaps of links, click below the jump...)

I offered some thoughts during the game summary.  BK relayed Kobe's words at the podium.  Here's a buffet of additional thoughts about the Lakers' 99-86, Finals-clinching win over the Orlando Magic.  

As one would expects, OODLES of stuff out there.  While trying to provide as much as possible, I began a typical post forged through a running narrative and excerpts, but realized the body was growing far too dense for easy viewing.  Thus, I started over and switched to a cleaner bullet point layout.  I trust people can survive a thread robbed of my brilliant prose.

Anyhoo, here we go...

• Thoughts on the Finals
  
  1. True Hoop blog
  2. Bill Plaschke, L.A. Times
  3. Mark Heisler, L.A. Times
  4. Ted Green, L.A. Times, Fabulous Forum
  5. Steve Aschburner, SI
  6. Arash Markazi, SI
     

Presented bullet point style, because the kids love bullet points and we're gunning for that valued 18-49 demographic.

• True Hoop's Kevin Arnowitz analyzes the issues accompanies Orlando's "no true superstar as a go to guy" offense.
• Even Bill Simmons felt the Laker Nation's pain as various Magicians kept trotting to the line without a Laker to balance things out.
• A walk down Memory Lane takes Lakers fans to the intersection of Miracle Ave and Good Fortune Street.  Derek Fisher is drinking in the glory of the latest.
• Blog fave Roland Lazenby talks more about D.Fish's career as a top notch supporting player.
• Many folks, including yours truly, have praised the Magic's collective heart throughout the playoffs.  Tomorrow presents the chance to demonstrate why.
• Is it too early for NBA.com's Dave McMenamin to start wondering about retaining Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza during the offseason?   Apparently not, because Hoop Magazine Darryl Howerton is not only asking the same questions, but throwing Shannon Brown into the mix.
• The Lakers are taking the fun out of these Finals for the city of Orlando.  What with all the winning and such.
• Not to be a wet blanket, but should the "ain't won nothing yet" Lakers convert their 3-1 advantage into a title, can the dead broke city of L.A. really afford to foot the bill for a parade?

AK

I know I wasn't at a loss for words and emotions after a 99-91 comeback overtime win set to become a permanent part of Laker postseason loreb.  Here's what some other folks armed with computers and media credentials thought...

For so much of the playoffs, conversation has swirled around the Lakers' toughness, or rather a lack there of.  Gregg Patton of the Press-Enterprise is convinced the purple and gold feature some mettle. 

       Thursday night the Lakers clawed, scraped and dug exceedingly deep. It took their gutsiest effort of the postseason, their most memorable road game of the spring.   When the Lakers make it official sometime in the next week — maybe as early as Sunday — this will be the signature win. A come-from-behind — then come-from-behind again — victory over a dangerous, but self-destructing Orlando team.

A few topics of recurrence are back on the board heading into the Lakers-Magic Game 4, a series the Lakers feel remains in their grasp...

"Been There, Done That" Topic #1: Pau Gasol's touches

• As in, "not enough of them, and what say we step that tally up?"  After taking just eleven shots in Game 3's loss, and making nine of them, El Spaniard once again finds himself as the... wait for it... center of discussion.  And as always, this isn't simply a matter of bumping his point tally, but rather forging a better, cleaner offense.  Kelly Dwyer over at Ball Don't Lie offers a solid perspective along these lines.
  
  

         (Kobe) Bryant needed to find Gasol more often. Gasol scored an almost uncontested dunk on the first play of Tuesday's Game 3 and was just as unstoppable in the fourth quarter, and the space between, so it wasn't as if the Lakers had hot and cold streaks in order to pick and choose as to when they'd find Gasol. He was ready to rock all game long.

  But there's a lot more to this offense that obvious scores off of assists (like Gasol hitting a cutter), isolation moves and scores (Gasol takes two dribbles and knocks in the lefty hook, he's awesome), or hockey assists (Fisher got that wide-open corner three because Gasol found Ariza, the Magic collapsed, and the next pass found Fisher; it all starts with Pau, he's awesome.

You already got my take on the 108-104 defeat, as well as the Laker family perspective.  What say we drink in what everyone else had to say about the Magic getting on the board?

Let's start with a positive.  The Press-Enterprise's Gregg Patton notes that sweep hopes going unfulfilled won't shatter the Lakers' belief in their ability to capture the title.

      The Lakers lost, but weren't disheartened.  They weathered Orlando's "A" offense, an eye-popping 62.5 percent shooting night. They weathered the hostile atmosphere, after quickly adjusting from the happy glitz at Staples Center. They weathered the muggy weather.   And they came back from a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter, with a chance to tie or go ahead in the final minute.

      "They shot the heck out of the ball, and it's a one-possession game at the end," said Lakers reserve guard Jordan Farmar.

A play on words, what with Florida's automatic association with everything Disney: Mouse ears.  "It's a Small World." Electrical parades (not to be confused with an Electric Light Orchestra).  And on down the line.  But in the most literal of senses, Dwight Howard and the gang need this evening's Game 3 to take place in a "Magic Kingdom," a place where their squad rules with enough of an iron fist to avoid tumbling into a hole down a trio of contests. 

Superman in particular has struggled during these Finals, unable to create even the semblance of his 40 point "Hasta Manana" to the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Hell, dude's barely been able to dunk the ball against the Lakers.   Howard has operated way outside his comfort zone the last two games, despite his ability to draw fouls against Andrew Bynum.  That's led to Pau Gasol sliding over to the center spot, a scenario regarded as a potential purple and gold pitfall heading into the series.  Well, that's why the games aren't played on paper, as the saying goes.  "Gangly" has thus far won out over "muscular," and El Spaniard has made strides towards shedding a not-so-fond nickname. 

According to Derek Fisher, it's high time people took notice that reputation and reality aren't on the same page.

As BK noted during last night's analysis, this 101-96 Game 2 win over the Orlando Magic was secured in large part via good ol' fashioned "know how."  The Lakers are just one season removed from a Finals appearance.  Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher have appeared five times previous, winning in three.  Phil Jackson is 9 for 11 as a coach.  On the flip side, the Orlando Magic only have two players with a Finals appearance on their resume, and one of them (Ty Lue) wasn't even active last night.  Coach Stan Van Gundy is also negotiating unfamilar waters, and perhaps struggling to juggle his point guard rotation.  
If you think the "been there, done that" wasn't a factor during an OT win where the Lakers were hardly at their sharpest and the Magic arguably deserved the win more, I'd advise you to strap the thinking cap back on and give it another whirl.  

Whether you're talking about the Magic's twenty turnovers or an inability to dot the i's and cross the t's, the visitors couldn't sustain momentum when most needed.  The virgin Larry O'Brien experience can be nothing if not overwhelming, with pressure magnified at every turn (and even more so now for Orlando).  If you offered Courtney Lee another 100 chances to sink last night's game winning layup attempt, I'd venture he'd come through somewhere in the neighborhood of 99. It may not have been a gimme, but it was definitely doable.  Conceiving and executing the play is the bigger battle, so kudos to SVG and Hedo Turkoglu for their rabbit pulling act.  Unfortunately, Lee fell short in a sequence that perhaps exposed him as... well... a rookie. 

In the meantime, you have the Lakers, with their elder spokesmen coming through to compliment (and even pick up) Kobe Bryant during a solid but unspectacular night. 

She's just not a big hoops fan.  Anyway...

Given the every-other-day pace of the playoffs to this point, the extra day between Games 1 and 2 seemed a little weird.  At the very least, it gave us enough time to run out and grab another tripod to replace the one we broke a few weeks ago.  (You should see a vastly improved production value going forward... haha.)  Now it's back to business in tonight's Game 2 (5 pm, ABC).  There are questions a'plenty that still require answers, starting with Kobe's personality and mood (not smiling does not equal no fun, he says), and then the team's (seriously now, have they truly learned their lessons?).  There are other big picture questions, too.  What about Lamar Odom?  His second crack at a title with the Lakers is here, but so is a huge question of impending free agency.  Odom has expressed his desire to stay, and spoke yesterday about what a championship would mean to him.

For now, Odom is keeping his eye on what's directly in front of him, even while getting reminders of his past.

And, of course, there are issues on the court, as the Magic look to avoid a perilous 0-2 hole.  Start with Dwight Howard.  While the Lakers are pleased with the work they did on him in Game 1, they fully expect a better showing from Orlando's center tonight. LA figures the Magic will shoot better, too.  The law of averages nearly dictates Orlando will improve on their 30% mark from Thursday.  Where they shoot from might depend on how much Jameer Nelson plays.  (Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel thinks he should start. Increased playing time wouldn't surprise the Lakers.)

For the Magic to score, they'll need to penetrate an increasingly stingy Lakers defense, writes John Hollinger (Insider subscription required):