Four straight strong games from Lamar Odom.
Four straight Lakers wins.
No, it's probably not a coincidence.
Odom -- despite his bruised but healing back -- was second on the Lakers in minutes Sunday night (45 minutes, 53 seconds) and once again filled his line in the box score -- 19 points, eight rebounds, two assists, a steal, three blocks and two turnovers -- in the Lakers' 101-96 win over Orlando in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
In the Lakers' current four-game playoff win streak, Odom is averaging 17.3 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks -- pretty good by anyone's standards, and pretty clearly a difference-making contribution for the Lakers.
This despite a large area of swelling (gradually decreasing, but still sizeable) in his lower back, the result of a hard full in the second-round series with Houston.
"Nothing in my life has been easy, like from day one," said Odom. "I don't expect it. I've got a nice big house, I expect the door to break. I expect something to go wrong. That's life."
There's not much going wrong for Odom right now.
"I look down today and I see I played 45 minutes," he said. "Kobe played 48. He's always hurt. Pau is hurt. That's the way it is. I'm an athlete. I have to just take care of myself."
Phil Jackson knew Odom would eventually get a handle on his back. But no one knew how long it would take.
"It was about being able to play with discomfort, pain that arises from that," said Jackson. "So we thought that he would improve, and actually he has improved. He's come through in every game. ... I know he's struggling out there at the end of the game, but he still came through in a big way for us."
The most impressive thing about Odom's night may be that he needed just nine shots (hitting eight) to score his 19 points. Even when he's that efficient, he knows he's not going to demand the ball, or get it much more.
"You've got Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol," he said. "Those guys are perennial all-stars. I know the offense. I know how to find my way through the offense and get those shots and make them when they count, and all I have to do is get the defense leaning toward me and then Pau and Kobe get it going.
"There's going to be some nights I just have to be efficient. ... I've just got to take advantage when my opportunity comes."
The near miss: Orlando very nearly changed the complexion of the series in a fraction of a second.
Had Courtney Lee made a layup off an alley-oop inbounds pass with six-tenths of a second remaining, Orlando would have won 90-88 in regulation and tied the finals at 1-1 going to Florida.
Instead, the shot bounced out, and the Lakers went on to the overtime win.
"It was a good play," said Lee. "It was a good pass. Coach (Stan Van Gundy) did a good job of drawing up the right play. I caught it, got a good look at the backboard. I tried to get it up there as quick as possible, and the ball rolled off the rim."
Orlando was originally going to run a different play, but with Odom pressuring Hedo Turkoglu's inbounds pass, Turkoglu called a time-out, and Van Gundy drew up something else.
"We executed well," said Van Gundy. "Hedo made a great pass, and we missed it. ... I don't know what else to say. It was a great pass, it was right there, and he missed it."
Said Turkoglu, "I saw an opening and threw it up. It's just luck."
Lee escaped Kobe Bryant's defensive coverage for the open shot, leaving Bryant to merely watch and utter to himself a four-letter word before the shot bounced away. Pau Gasol, meanwhile, leapt toward the basket to try to pressure Lee.
"I was obviously relieved when he missed that shot," said Gasol, "because it could have been a heartbreaker, and right now we could be in a totally different situation.
"I was surprised he was kind of wide open. But I tried to contest it as good as I could, and then we gave ourselves a chance to win the ballgame."
The all-star announcement: Truthfully, beyond the news that the NBA All-Star Game is coming to L.A. in 2011, there wasn't much notable from the press conference announcing the event. The people on the podium -- commissioner Stern, Tim Leiweke (CEO of AEG), mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and councilwoman Jan Perry -- spent times saying nice things about each other and the event. Various reporters from various cities asked about the prospect their cities could land future games. And then everyone left to watch the most boring first quarter in NBA Finals history.
Probably the most interesting exchange came when Leiweke was asked if he could envision hosting the All-Star game at an AEG property outside the United States. He said yes, but both he and Stern said they could not foresee it at AEG's arena in London.
Which would seem to leave China, where AEG and the NBA are partners in operating arenas, including the one that hosted the Olympic basketball tournament this year. Not that the game is likely to leave North America any time soon.
What they said: A few Orlando postgame quotes:
Van Gundy, who played most of the fourth quarter without either of his point guards, Rafer Alston or Jameer Nelson on the court, asking J.J. Reddick to run the offense:
"I thought Rafer was playing well, but they're just leaving him open on every post-up, and we couldn't get the ball in the basket, so we were just searching for somebody to be able to make a shot. Obviously, we didn't find anybody. Our guards were 6 for 26 ... L.A.'s defense was good, but I thought our guards for the most part had very good open looks. ...
"That was the only thing, we were just trying to see if we could get somebody out there who would make shots off the double teams and off the pick-and-rolls and things like that."

Dwight Howard, again contained by the Lakers' defense:
"I think they're doing a great job, team defense. They're mixing it up on me. When Pau is on me, he's forcing me baseline, and there's a big coming to trap me. They're mixing it up. They're doing some crazy things, and its' been frustrating me a little bit.
"But I just have to be more patient and trust my teammates, kick it out and allow them to hit the open shots, and hopefully that will free me up more on the inside. ...
"I was frustrated tonight and in the first game, but being the leader on my team, my teammates cannot see me frustrated."

Turkoglu, on the inability to convert on that final play in regulation:
"It's really hard when you lose these kinds of games when they're in your control, and especially in the fourth quarter. We played better than we played in the first game, but we still have some stuff that we have to do better and we have to correct. We have a lot of turnovers (20) and missed free throws.
"All around, we played good, but it wasn't good enough to win the game."

As expected -- and, in fact, reported in advance by a number of outlets -- the NBA announced prior to Game 2 of the NBA Finals that it had awarded the 2011 NBA All-Star game and related events to Staples Center.
The game -- the fifth to be played in L.A., returning after just seven years -- will be Sunday, Feb. 20, with other events on Friday (rookie game) and Saturday (skills, 3-point and slam dunk competitions).
The relatively short turnaround between all-star games is unusual, but may well be the wave of the future.
"We're likely to shorten the rotation a bit," said commissioner David Stern, "because it's getting hard to find cities with the kind of amenities (necessary) -- the close-in hotel accommodations, the convention center, and the like. And L.A. has been a popular destination. When we started looking at the rotation, this seemed a good time to do it."
That hints at one key point -- the game has to be someplace that players want to go if you want them to participate -- but doesn't really address another: A lot of teams want nothing to do with the all-star game because, by the time the NBA takes its share of the tickets, virtually none are left for the host team's season-ticket holders, which tends to alienate the fan base. The 2011 event is actually awarded to Staples, not to either the Lakers or the Clippers, which bypasses some of those issues.
Tim Leiweke, the CEO of AEG -- the company owning Staples and the surrounding L.A. Live complex -- said the all-star game will be the first major event hosted by Staples with the entire complex -- hotels, theaters and restaurants -- complete.
More from the rather self-congratulatory press conference involving Stern, Leiweke, and mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after the game.

A couple of comments from the coaches' pregame media conferences:
-- Phil Jackson, on what he expects from Orlando:
"We have to look at the fact that it's an uptempo team. They didn't have a whole lot of transition offense in the last game, so probably look for early offense.
"The other aspect of the game is how much will they go to the post? The final thing we have to prevent is penetration through screen-rolls and that liberates a lot of the 3-point shooters. We know they're going to get 3-point shots. We just want to be able to contest them."
-- Stan Van Gundy, asked if the decision to playing Jameer Nelson in Game 1 was largely about preparing him for later in the series:
"It didn't really enter into my thinking. I just thought that he wuld play pretty well, and I thought playing him would give us the best chance to win in Game 1. It didn't work out that way, not because of Jameer obviously, but it didn't work out that way.
"But that's my only thinking. I wasn't thinking to Game 3 or Game 4."

Back about 10:30 or so with a postgame entry.

A quick update: That's an off day for me, not the Finals. The Lakers and Magic had practice today, but I needed to tuck in a day off someplace, and the second day of rehashing Game 1 and contemplating Game 2 seemed like a good one.

But, off day or no, I should note that the Lakers and NBA have sent out a press release that a "major annoucement" will be made Sunday before Game 2. Since those participating are David Stern, AEG CEO Tim Leiweke, L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and councilwoman Jan Perry, we can assume it's something happening at Staples Center. The most likely scenario would seem to be that L.A. will host the 2011 all-star game. It was last here in 2004, which isn't all that long ago, but since most teams don't really want to host the game (it's a lot of work, and because the NBA's business partners get the vast majority of tickets, the host team mostly just irritates its season-ticket base) don't be surprised if that's the deal.

Also, don't be surprised if the L.A. Times has a story about this tomorrow in advance of the "major announcement." The NBA has an annoying tendency to leak/hand these kinds of stories to the largest local paper (see every MVP award for the last decade or so for proof.)

Coverage will resume here tomorrow with pre- and post-game entries from Game 2 of the Finals. The pre-game post -- which should be up before the opening tip -- will include news on this "major announcement."

*--Update: Some blogs (most notably ESPN's True Hoops) are reporting/speculating that the announcement is going to be that the NBA Draft is moving from New York to L.A. Hard to get excited about the idea of finding out what the Charlotte Bobcats do with their draft pick, but then, it's not exactly like the all-star game is the greatest moment in sports.