A word about my Orlando Magic

If I may, I would like to take a minute to wax rhapsodic about the Orlando Magic, a team I have been rooting for since I was a knee-high (and I’m about a shoulder-high now).

As many of you know, the Magic lost at home to the Lakers last night in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, falling in the best-of-seven series, 4-1.

And I couldn’t be much more proud of them.

This Magic team was the first one since 1994-95 to make the NBA Finals and the first ever to win a Finals game.

For a guy that has suffered through every Greg Kite, Geert Hammik, Jud Buecheler, Britton Johnsen and Fran Vazquez the world has to offer, that’s a big feat in my book (look them all up…you will be amused).

In these playoffs, the Magic fell behind a vastly inferior Philadelphia team, 2-1, before winning three straight to move out of the first round.

They fell behind the Celtics and battled through the weight of history, Jesus Shuttlesworth and The Truth, The Sports Fella and most of ESPN to spoil the much-anticipated Celtics-LeBron rematch in the conference finals.

Then, they went up against Basketball Jesus and had to suffer through Kobe/LeBron Vitamin Water/Nike adds in every commercial break to spoil the much-much-more-anticipated Kobe-LeBron showdown in the Finals.

Then they went up against a Lakers team that has three players that are better than Orlando’s second-best on most nights. And they lost.

But they were still a few bad breaks and youthful mistakes from going up 3-1 in that series. And a boy can dream, can’t he?

Even so, the Magic were the first team to face three 60-win regular season teams in a single postseason and they beat two of them, So nobody can say they didn’t deserve to be there.

To all you Lakers fans out there (I’m talking to you especially, Curtis Luper and a certain former Daily Northwestern Sports colleague that shall not be named), congratulations.

And to all you Orlando natives and die-hard Magic fans (and if you try to claim I’m not die-hard, I will fight you…and you will lose), enjoy it: you just witnessed some history. To all you fair-weather fans…heck, enjoy it, too. After all, what other kind of weather is there in Florida? Besides debilitating heat and humidity and daily downpours in the summer…

This was a fun team, an exciting team, an electrifying team to watch and a good team. I believe this image sums it up well.

Now play it again, Sam.