ORLANDO - Dismissing questions about fatigue late in games, Kobe Bryant vowed he'd always have enough in reserve to run through a wall to lead the Lakers to a title.

Bryant and his team ran into plenty of resistance Thursday in the form of a wall disguised as Dwight Howard.

Eventually, the Lakers delivered enough blows to break through. Bryant scored 32 points and Derek Fisher made two clutch three-pointers to lead the Lakers to a 99-91 overtime victory over the Magic on Thursday night at Amway Arena.

Fisher's three-pointer with 31.3 seconds left in overtime put his team ahead to stay gave the Lakers a commanding 3-1 lead in the series. Los Angeles is within a victory of winning its 15th championship, and getting its first chance to put the series away in Game 5 on Sunday night. Both Bryant and Fisher are going for their fourth championships and first since Shaquille O'Neal was traded to Miami. The Lakers also ended a seven-game Finals road losing streak, which had tied a league record.

"This is the toughest [loss] because it puts us down two games and on the brink of elimination and the mood was obviously very somber," said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. "We've got a couple of days here and we'll get it back together and come out and do everything we can to win Game 5. Everybody was very, very disappointed."

The Lakers fought through an off night offensively and ultimately prevailed with defense. They limited the Magic to only one field goal in the overtime period. And that came on the first shot of overtime, when Rashard Lewis' three-pointer put the Magic up 90-87 with 4:34 left.

"We came out of the locker room at halftime with determination,'' Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of his team's rally from a 12-point first-half deficit. "We thought we played really poorly (in the first half)."

The Lakers had to overcome a huge performance from Dwight Howard, who set a Finals record with nine blocks to go with 16 points and 21 rebounds. But Howard missed a crucial free throw with 1:27 left. Instead of putting his team ahead by a point, the Magic settled for a 91-91 tie.

Fisher sent the game into overtime on a three-pointer that tied it at 87-87 with 4.6 seconds left. His shot capped a 5-0 run by the Lakers after the Magic had led 87-82 with 1:34 remaining in regulation.

"I wanted to come through for the guys," said Fisher, who scored eight of his 12 points in the fourth quarter and overtime periods. "Even though I haven't been making them, it felt good to help the team out that way. I have a responsibility to my team that if I am going to be on the floor, then I have to make a difference."

There were seven ties or lead changes over the final five minutes of regulation, which began with a three-point play from Mickael Pietrus that erased what had been a six-point Lakers lead and put the Magic ahead 76-75 with 5:38 left.

The game was tied at 79, when Howard's layup and free-throw pushed Orlando ahead again 82-79. But Trevor Ariza tied it again on a three-pointer from the top of the key with the shot clock winding down.

"He just made big plays. He knocked down shots," said Bryant of Ariza's 16-point performance. "Last game we felt like he had some of those shots and he was upset with himself because he didn't knock em down."

Both teams made adjustments after neither was satisfied with its defense in Game 3, when the Magic set a Finals record by shooting 62.5 percent from the field with the Lakers converting at a 51.3-percent rate.

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