I’ve pretty much been holding the flame for Courtney Lee ever since he posterized LeBron (twice). It helps, of course, that he went to Western Kentucky University (Hilltoppers represent), as did I; although, my two semester stay at WKU wasn’t near as productive as Lee’s Hilltopper tenure. After being buried under and avalanche of missed Nick Anderson free throws for the miss at the end of Game 2, Lee got a modicum of comeuppance with a nasty baseline dunk in Game 3. Yeah, it was only worth two points in the middle of the third quarter, but when you look at the four-point deciding margin, buckets like these loom a little bit larger.

As for the Lee/Bryant match up, while Kobe lit the Magic and Lee up in the first quarter in Game 3, the idea is Lee is making Bryant work, while apparently getting under his skin a little.

After making eight of 15 in the first half, over the eight minutes of the third quarter, before Lee checked out for good, Bryant scored just two points, on free throws. Bryant fought and fought — into the post, around screens, through various sets. He touched the ball plenty, but didn’t even get a shot off during those eight minutes…

At one point, it appeared like Bryant and Lee threw simultaneous elbows at each other. “A couple plays,” says Lee “we got into a little scuffle, but there’s no harm in that. We were competing. … The referees did a good job of telling us to keep it clean, to keep the elbows down, but other than that we were competing.”

A much better alternative than simply yielding the match up — and the game — to Bryant and the Lakers.

H/t to NBA Tipoff’s Twitter.

Tags: Courtney Lee, Dunks, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA Finals, Orlando Magic

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