Orlando Magic Blog

Group Blog talking about the NBA 2009 Eastern Conference Champions. Due to the amazing success of the 2009 playoff run comments are now frequently deleted to kill offensive comments, incoherence, or asininity. Comments can no longer be anonymous and require either a Blogger or OpenID account.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Magic turn up offense in second half to pull away from Cavs

The Magic had an absolutely miserable first half, scoring just 40 pts on 31% FG shooting, as they trailed CLE by 5 going into the half. In particular, HTurkoglu and RLewis struggled tremendously, as they scored a combined 2 first half pts on 1 of 9 FG shooting. Things really changed in the second half, as the Magic shot 19 of 38 FGs, with Turkoglu and Lewis combining for 37 pts on 11 of 21 FGs. The Magic (45-24, 22-12 home) rallied from a 10 pt third qtr deficit, outscoring CLE (38-30) by 13 pts in the final qtr to win going away 104-90.

Four of the five Magic starters scored in double figures, led by DHoward with 23 pts (6 of 14 FGs, 11 of 15 Fts), 13 rebs; RLewis 21 pts, all of which came in the second half (7 of 11 FGs), 6 rebs; HTurkoglu 18 pts (5 of 16 FGs), 7 rebs, 5 asts; and MEvans 10 pts (4 of 5 FGs). KDooling led the reserves with 8 pts, as 5 reserves scored for the Magic.

CLE was led by LeBron James, who had his usual superb game with 30 pts, 9 rebs, 6 asts. He didn't get much help, as only two other CLE players scored in double figures with Delonte West scoring 16 pts and Sasha Pavlovic 14 pts.

The statistical breakdown:

FGs... CLE 35 of 80 (43.8%) ORL 34 of 86 (39.5%) ORL 82 CLE 76
3 PT FGs... ORL 14 of 32 (43.8%) CLE 6 of 19 (31.6%)
FTs... ORL 22 of 28 (78.6%) CLE 14 of 22 (63.6%)
REBs... CLE 44 ORL 40
AST/TO... ORL 21/10 CLE 17/14
BENCH... ORL 26 CLE 24

The Magic have now won 5 games in a row and 13 of the last 16 games overall, and now lead CLE by 6 1/2 games for the third seed in the East. Magic host WAS on WED night, with Gilbert Arenas possibly making his long-awaited return for the Wizards.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 10:45 PM  

2 Comments:

  • At 4:52 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    There's only one game separating PHI, WAS, and TOR in the standings. The Magic almost certainly will face one of those teams in the first round.

    The Magic starting frontcourt once again outplays the opposition's starting frontcourt, this time outscoring CLE 62-36, and outrebounding them 26-20. LeBron did all he could, but got little help from Ilgauskas and Wallace.

    It's been almost a month since the big three-team trade, and the Cavs are still struggling to gain momentum in the standings. They are something like 7-6 since the trade. The four new guys, West, Wallace, Smith, and Szczerbiak combined to score just 27 pts against the Magic. CLE really misses Daniel Gibson; and will probably do better once he comes back.

    Garrity saw over 17 mins of playing time with Lewis and Cook in foul trouble in the first half. He did a heck of a job too, scoring 5 pts, along with 3 rebs and a blocked shot.

    A couple of games ago, I was raving about how well Nelson was doing at PG, especially in regard to his AST/TO ratio. Hope I didn't jinx him; in his last two games, he has 8 TOs, compared to 5 TOs in his previous six games. He does have 16 asts though in the last two games, which makes for an acceptable 2/1 AST/TO ratio. Bad shooting night for Nelson though, going only 2 of 12.

    Dooling was the designated backup PG against the Cavs, and did a nice job with 8 pts and 2 asts.

    On NBA Fastbreak MON night on ESPN, Tim Legler said that he thinks the Magic are a legit threat to win the East because of how well their frontcourt has done and the matchup problems it presents for the opposition. He points out how successful they've been against DET and BOS, and believes the Magic could give either team a tremendous challenge in a 7 game series. Legler acknowledges the lack of size at the PG spot defensively, but thinks the other Magic players can defend well enough.

     

  • At 10:05 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Wow what an explosion,seemed like we were stuck in a funk untill the keyon dunk. After that everything started to fall,we were taking good shots in the first half we just werent making anything. SVG in his post game wrap-up said he thought we were rushing things in the first half which lead to the slow start,what-ever the case they woke up just in time. Like i thought,dwight and rashard were the difference winning their match-ups. Great effort from the guys all night.

     

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