In Game 2 Sunday, they were much, much better, and if not for a Courtney Lee alley-oop that rolled off the rim as time expired — a brilliant play, and about as good a look as you are liable to get when running a play with six-tenths of a second left — this would be a tied series, heading back for three games in Orlando against a Lakers team that has put forward some road stinkers in these playoffs.

Instead, the Lake show is up 2-0, and everybody is canonizing Kobe Bryant, and the Magic look like a team that can't quite figure out what to do. It doesn't mean the series is over; after all, the Miami Heat were in the same situation in Game 3 of the 206 Finals — plus, they were down 13 with 6:42 left in said game — and won the next four contests.

That's not exactly common, though.

See, the reason some of us took Orlando was that the Lakers have been reluctant to, uh, play defence. To beat Orlando you need to be able and willing to rotate out to its many shooters, which is why had the Boston Celtics had Kevin Garnett, they would have been the Magic's poison pill. But the Lakers, for all their length, have often looked disinterested enough that maybe Orlando would beat them.

In Game 1, this didn't happen — the Lakers worked hard to reach shooters, harrassed Magic centre Dwight Howard, and won going away. In Game 2, the Lakers allowed more open looks, but Orlando didn't knock down enough shots to make them pay. We're looking at you, Rafer Alston.

And that's what this series is about. Not Dwight Howard's struggles, not Kobe Bryant's elegant if shot-happy work, not Jack Nicholson's sideline rages. In all, Orlando is shooting 56-for-156 in the first two games, or .359. They have missed jumpers. They have missed layups. Their guards — Alston, Jameer Nelson, Lee, Mickael Pietrus, and J.J. Redick — are 20-for-69.

It's really not very complicated. It's not that the Magic are missing too many threes — they are at .340 for the first two games, versus .364 in the post-season as a whole. They just need somebody — Pietrus, Alston, Nelson, anybody — to make shots. It's a collective confidence thing, maybe. It's the defence, perhaps. Whatever the reason, it's what will or will not make this a series.

Orlando defended better in Game 2, ran a cleaner version of its offence, made shots when they had to, and generally had a very good chance to make this a series.

And they still do. All season, the Magic have won games by hanging around, and then unleashing a three-point-fueled barrage to tip the game. Maybe when they get home, the shots will start to fall.