The 2009 Orlando Magic played a style ahead of its time — with elite spacing, stretch bigs and a dominant Dwight Howard anchoring the paint. In this video, Ben Taylor from Thinking Basketball rewatches and breaks down a single half of Game 1 to show how Orlando used basketball concepts popular today to upset MVP LeBron James and the Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals.
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22 Comments
Was not an upset, the magic were better
2009 was a great year!
Hedo Turkoglu would average 20+ today
Perfect mismatch
Video full of excuses 😂
And they (Magic) still lost in the Finals in 5 games against the Lakers. Big f'n deal. 😤
when i watched this as a kid i hated rashard lewis it seemed he was NOT going to miss anything
I hated orlando around this time. Why? i was always anti lakers anti kobe. The world wanted that lebron kobe finals. Orlando upset Cleveland killing them from the 3pt line only to lose in 5 against the Lakers. SMH just real foolishness back to back that year
Check out LeBron at 0:42. That closing speed and the distance he covered after recognizing the open man is crazy, and he did so under control
That’s because LBJ is just an average basketball player but overrated too much. He doesn’t have any solid skills throughout his career but flopping, elbowing, traveling, pushing, and so on. He has been playing that long in the league just because refs and reporters are all blind.
Could you make a sequel of how the Lakers guarded Orlando on the finals? I thought their defense was a little bit ahead of its time in terms of early rotations where they trapped the pick and roll ball handler but had Kobe and Fisher rotate to Rashad Lewis
Can u imagine a LeBron vs Kobe Finals?!? Wow😮
This saved LeBron legacy from Kobe
Hedo in the modern game would be something special. Frantz Wagner without the defense?
The magic beat themselves that year they should have had one at least two rings back to back
Loved this Orlando team. Rashard Lewis was my favorite. Too bad they lost to the Lakers. But Rashard still won a ring in Miami 2013. He wasn't the main man though, unlike when he was in Orlando.
Pretty much I think that 2013 Heat was stacked back then. Imagine the big 3 in Bron, Wade, Bosh, plus Rashard and Ray allen. That's 5 All stars and are all independent superstars from their previous teams.
Why does Lebron get a video making excuses for him?
18:36 you kinda explained why Mike Brown was fired. Did not adjust at the time.
My heart was truly broken when CLE loss to the magic I couldn’t believe it but ORL was just the better team and they had all the pieces they needed to get to the finals 🥴🥴🥴🥴
Mike Brown got severely OUT-COACHED. Knick fans better get ready to hear that phrase often…
I always tell people, Steph Curry and the warriors get ALL the credit for how the game is played and it sucks because teams like this don’t get any credit for their role in how the game is played today, Dwight just got unlucky he was facing off against one of the greatest players of all time hungry after being beaten in the finals
Indiana beating Cleveland this past season was basically a carbon copy of this series