Eastern Conference Finals - Game 6 Recap

Cleveland Cavaliers 90
Orlando Magic 103
Orlando Wins Series 4-2

Not this year, Cleveland. A city so desperate for a championship after a 45-year drought will have to wait a little longer. This, of course, is in no way the fault of LeBron James. The King had another stellar performance, but once again, his team was unable to provide him with enough support to overcome another great effort by the Orlando Magic. So instead of the Kobe-LeBron dream Finals everyone thought was inevitable, Kobe's Lakers now get to deal with stopping Superman, Dwight Howard.

The Magic executed a flawless gameplan, going inside to Howard early and often, and he rang up 40 points on the night. When Howard wasn't scoring down low, he was either at the line (where he impressed again, hitting 12-of-16) or drawing double teams that left his shooters open (12 3-pointers). The Magic controlled the boards, outrebounding the Cavs by 13 and managed to stay in control all game. In fact, Cleveland did not lead at any point during the contest. So 14 years after being led to the Finals by a dominant center in Shaquille O'Neal, the Magic are going back on the shoulders of their new dominant big guy.

Cleveland has an interesting offseason ahead of them. Obviously, the focus will again be on giving LeBron James enough of a supporting cast to win it all. Everyone thought that's what they had this season, and this group helped LeBron win MVP and the Cavs to an NBA-best 66-16 record. On top of that, the Cavaliers rolled through the first two series of the playoffs (combined 8-0) before running into a confident Magic team that was playing its best basketball of the playoffs and just presented so many matchup problems for the Cavs. I don't think Cleveland should overreact. They have a good team with good role players that fit, they just didn't play well in this series. I think the Lakers had a lot of criticism about them after the Finals loss to Boston last year, but they didn't overhaul the roster. Granted, it helped to know that they would be getting Andrew Bynum back, but still, they resisted doing anything drastic. I think Cleveland should ignore the inevitable questions of how good the supporting cast is because obviously, it was good enough for 66 wins (plus 10 more in the playoffs), just underperformed at the wrong time.

Coming up on TSG, we will break down the upcoming NBA Finals between the Orlando Magic and the Los Angeles Lakers. Stay tuned!