Great to see ya stop in Thor.
Hope you don't mind me adding my thoughts in your thread here, but since you started the conversation, it seemed like the appropriate place.
I agree with your assessment here. Everyone will over react to one game where it could easily be said that the Magic were terrible as much as the Lakers were great, bet the house on the Lakers in game 2 at an unfavorable line, and probably lose when Orlando shoots better than a stinkin ass 30% from the field, and possibly holds on to the ball a little better, amongst other adjustments they need to make, and have proven they can and will do. I remember people having these guys written off after they lost game 1 to Philly, and when Howard got suspended vs Philly, about 3 times in the Boston series, and certainly prior to the Cleveland series, before they clowned Mr James and dethroned the already crowned Eastern champ Cavs in 6 games. Oh yea....and I remember a game in that series where the exact same thing happened. CLE came out all motivated, down 3-1 in the series, and won by a decent margin. What happened next game? ORL came to play, stepped on their throats, choked em out, and sent em packing.
I mean the line says it all. Lakers are -6 in game 1, win by 25, now everyone has a boner for them, and the books put out a -6.5 for the next game?
Also, the series price only went to +400 for Orlando (up from +280). That's not a huge jump for a team who dropped game 1 in ugly fashion, and whom pretty much every public Joe has losing this series in 4 games now....maybe 5 if they can muster up one lucky home win.
The public will also ignore that Orlando has a great road record, road wins @CLE and @BOS in these playoffs (including a game 7 win in BOS), and that they have proven all year they are fully capable of playing with anyone, anywhere. Not to mention they won both reg season meetings vs LAL. One big loss where they came out pretty flat and the other team came out at the top of their game and blew them out doesn't automatically make them suck. I mean what a major overreaction we're hearing from the media and public alike here. They've all but crowned the Lakers, and deemed Kobe as the greatest of all time (again)....yet the books release basically the same line as the first game?
All of this could be a bit of a motivator for ORL, if you ask me, and it's no secret what this team has done when motivated.
The books aren't scared of the public pounding they're taking on the Lakers in game 2, and rightly so, imho....