Game review: Lakers (32-9) 98, Magic (26-15) 92
In a game that featured big runs from both teams, the Magic were unable to hold onto a 9 point lead late in the third quarter, as Los Angeles scored the first 15 points of the fourth quarter to retake the lead for good. The Magic were unable to take advantage of a poor shooting game from the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who shot 4 of 19 for 11 points. However, the Lakers' bench picked up the slack, scoring 42 points, led by a career-high 22 points from Shannon Brown.
The Lakers started out fast, getting out to a 21-8 lead, before settling for a 33-25 lead after one quarter. The Magic slowly got back into the game in the second quarter, cutting the Lakers' lead to 52-47 at the half. Dwight Howard had an outstanding first half for the Magic, scoring 18 points on 9 of 12 shooting. The Lakers scored the first 4 points of the third quarter, before the Magic went on a stunning 20-2 run over the next 7 minutes to take a 67-58 lead with just over 3 minutes remaining in the quarter, and led after three 68-64. The Lakers scored the first 15 points of the fourth quarter to complete a 21-1 run of their own to go ahead 79-68. The Magic did not score their first point of the final quarter until 6:38 remained. The closest the Magic could get after that was 96-92 with 23 seconds remaining thanks to some late threes before the Lakers made free throws to close the scoring.
Magic leading scorers
Dwight Howard: 24 points (10 of 14 FGs), 12 rebounds, 3 blocks
Rashard Lewis: 18 points (6 of 11 FGs, 3 of 7 3 PT FGs), 5 rebounds
Jameer Nelson: 13 points (6 of 14 FGs), 8 assists
Matt Barnes: 13 points (5 of 11 FGs), 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 blocks
Overall Game Statistics
FG%: ORL 43.9% (36 of 82) LAL 42.7% (38 of 89)
3 PT FG%: ORL 33.3% (11 of 33) LAL 33.3% (6 of 18)
FT%: LAL 72.7% (16 of 22) ORL 60% (9 of 15)
REB: LAL 44 (10 offensive) ORL 44 (9 offensive)
AST/TO: ORL 23/13 LAL 19/7
BENCH: LAL 42 ORL 15
Other game notes and stats:
-The Lakers had 5 other players in double figures in addition to Brown's career-high 22 points; Pau Gasol had a double/double of 17 points, 10 rebounds
-The Lakers' Lamar Odom grabbed 16 rebounds off the bench, while the entire Magic bench had 12 rebounds
-Bryant had a team-high 7 assists
-The Magic's Vince Carter's struggles continued, as he scored 9 points on 3 of 11 shooting in 29 minutes
-Ryan Anderson led the Magic bench with 6 points on 2 three pointers
-The Magic bench shot a combined 6 of 21 for the 15 points
-The Magic shot 15 of 41 from the field in the second half
-During the Lakers' 21-1 run in the second half, the Magic shot 0 for 10 from the field and committed 6 turnovers during that span
-The Magic close out the first half of the season at 26-15, in second place in the SE 1/2 game behind Atlanta, and 4th seed in the East
Here is the complete recap and box score from nba.com.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 3:24 AM
5 Comments:
At 4:33 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
From Brian Schmitz's recap in the online Orlando Sentinel, here are some post-game comments from Stan Van Gundy:
"We showed a little improvement. We showed in spots, but that's the problem," said coach Stan Van Gundy. "We are too streaky and not solid enough over the course of the game right now. But we did play better than we have in a while, which I guess is good.
"We got off to a bad start and I thought our guys did a good job fighting back," Van Gundy said. "That was the most resolve we've showed in a long time."
"But when you have played better and you have a loss, it's not a very good feeling."
At 4:47 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Coach Van Gundy's post-game remarks do a good job of describing the Magic game against the Lakers. They did play better and showed more resolve than the previous two games, but a loss is still a loss.
Some positives I took out of the game were that the Magic did indeed show resolve after falling behind 21-8 early, battled back by halftime, and took the lead in the third quarter with their 20-2 run.
I was encouraged by Dwight Howard's offensive performance in the first half, as he showed off a variety of his baskets and moves on offense and had probably his best first half this season.
Jameer Nelson's performance was also encouraging from the standpoint he had 8 assists.
But then, of course, were the negatives... the Magic collapse spanning the third and fourth quarter; the bench had arguably their worst game of the season; Vince Carter continues to struggle; and the Magic could not get the ball to Howard nearly as much in the second half, as he had only 2 shot attempts compared to 12 shot attempts in the first half.
Until VC gets better or is better able to manage his pain, he shouldn't be playing; he is a much better player than what he has shown the last several weeks, and it's doing him and the team a disservice by playing him when he's unable to help the team.
On to the second half of the season Wednesday, where hopefully the Magic can play more like the 17-4 Magic that opened the season rather than the 9-11 Magic that ended the first half of the season.
At 8:57 AM,
Matt said…
We were inconsistent in both offense and defense. That is, we were very good at spurts. I tend to believe that VC has to rest his shoulder, and does not come back until he is fully healed. His performance had a lot to do with our inconsistency.
Overall, the performance was encouraging to me. Dwight was great in the first half, but since the shots started falling in the second half, he got lost in 'transition'. That is unacceptable. Both Jameer and Rashard, which I was concerned with, played better. We are not going to gel overnight until we get healthy starters playing together, and right now both Vince and Jameer are not fully healthy. Thank goodness we have plenty of time. We can still win Southeast and earn the second spot in the East since BOS is not blowing anyone out of water. Insert J.J. in the starting line-up and save Vince for when it matters most. When this team is running in all cylinders home court disadvantage does not matter.
At 2:13 PM,
Big Figure said…
Yea i agree with both you guys. We played about as good as we could defensively in that third quarter,but the guys got baited into a three point shooting contest by the lakers to start the fourth. RA hit a few early but couldnt keep it going,jwill couldnt hit anything and neither could JJ. Our starters when on the floor i thought played pretty well with the exception of VC,jameer looked good and i hated to see him off the floor because jwill just wasnt giving us anything. And After dwight plays so well offensively i the first half,the first shot of the third quarter was a three point attempt by VC followed up by a three point attempt by jameer. Both misses and dwight gets no touches. That lack of discipline caused the magic to play more of an outside game throughout the thirds quarter,but they were playing with fool's gold. When the shots stopped falling they were already completely out of the style of play that built them the lead,now they were running up and down launching three's and missing. Around the 6 minute mark of the fourth they tried to go back to re-establishing dwight but by then the damage was done,they had successfully ignored dwight for a quarter and a half. These guys have to understand (mainly VC)that they need to become more unselfish,do whats best for the team and not so quick to always launch a jumper to pad their own stats or get themself going. The bench has to be better and SVG not playing BB at all hurts because he can get a basket in traffic and he's not gonna launch three's on the break (like RA did last night way to much).
At 10:17 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
I was errant in not giving Rashard Lewis any props for his performance against the Lakers. 18 points on just 11 shots is pretty good efficiency, and a hopeful sign.
He has to do it for more than one game, though.
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