He's no Shavlik Randolph...

J.J. Redick? In the 4th quarter of the NBA finals?

That plotline would have sounded possible, maybe even probable, sometime in early 2006. Redick and Morrison, it was the return of the beautiful game that is white-boy basketball where everybody "hustles" has "grit and determination" and is the "next Larry Bird."

Flash Forward three wonderful basketball years and Redick still is nothing more than a glorified shooter despite the shocking appearance the JJ Redick late game dribble drive in Game 2 in LA. The only determination Redick shows is in his quest to keep his hair looking like he is going straight from the locker room to the club without passing go or collecting $200. Of course most nights this works as he would seem to see no than a few minutes in relief of Mickael Pietrus or Courtney Lee. He might possibly not get off the bench at all as he did most of the series against the Cavaliers.

Nope. Not today. No way. No how. Jonathan Clay Redick gonna get his.

In a game that could swing the series for the Magic, Stan Van Gundy manages to find 27 minutes of mostly late game P.T. for JJ. The only time you'll see that again is if you happen to watch my college buddy J-Skulls, a Duke "homer" who hails from 5 miles south of Nowhere, NY, play in an NBA2k version of the finals. To defend Van Gundy (Not Skulls, his Duke fandom is indefensible), Pietrus fouled out and Lee's defense on Kobe in Game 1 made the chair Yi went up against before the '07 Draft look like Bruce Bowen.

Still Redick is NOT a viable defensive option on Sasha Vujacic yet alone Kobe Bryant. He is a shooter and his play forced a 6'10" Turkish man to guard Kobe. Redick wasn't even a factor on offense save a lone three from the corner late in the fourth. A missed WIDE OPEN three (I cannot stress how open. The vaunted Laker closeout defense wasn't within 5 feet at the time of his release) that swung the game in the Lakers' favor was much more important than any positive impact Redick had on the game.

Save the aforementioned late dribble-drive bucket -- a play that looked an awful lot like it was run FOR Redick in a need to score situation (I'll give Van Gundy credit for confusing the Lakers into letting them score as they were clearly thinking, "Did they really draw this up for JJ Redick?") -- JJ just stood idly in the far corner by the Lakers' bench doing very little other then making sure the Magic had 5 players on the court. Granted NBA basketball is never more of a 1-on-1 game than in the fourth quarter, but even as the other 3 players cycled around to some degree waiting for Turkoglu to do something, JJ just stood there.

Redick's play and minutes are just one issue the Magic have going into Game 3. What to do with Jameer Nelson is another. Getting Dwight Howard to decide that no matter what, a dude named Pau and the corpse that formerly belonged to Andrew Bynum will not stop him is most important.

I'm rooting for the Magic. Thats the beauty of the blog vs. the newspaper, I can say that without getting in trouble. Because of that I HOPE that Stan Van Gundy realizes JJ can join the rest of the great white college shooters (read: Duke graduate) of the past decade on the end of the bench and not try an be a hero. You never know, I've seen it happen to the greatest Boston College team in recent memory, felled by an "unguardable" NBA range three from none other than Redick.

But hey, after watching these playoffs it's become clear. If a pure shooter who has the same ability to create his shot against a top NBA defender as Wang Zhi Zhi does can make a positive impact on a championship team, it would be with this Orlando team.