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.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Game review: Magic (35-17) 123, Hornets (27-25) 117


Led by Vince Carter's 48 points, his best game in a Magic uniform, the Magic were able to overcome a 15 point halftime deficit and an 11 point fourth quarter deficit to New Orleans.

The Magic got off to a quick 12-5 lead to open the game, but the Hornets came back to take a 32-28 lead after one. The Magic continued to struggle defensively in the second quarter, as they gave up 38 points to the Hornets as they scored 70 first half points to lead 70-55 at the half. The Hornets scored the first basket of the second half for their largest lead of the game at 72-55 before the Magic started their comeback. The Magic went on a 28-12 run to come within 84-83 before the Hornets extended their lead to 94-87 going into the fourth. The Hornets extended their lead back to double digits at 104-93 with 8:09 remaining before the Magic went on a 18-3 run to lead 111-107 with 3 minutes remaining. The Hornets got as close as 120-117 with 25.8 seconds remaining before Rashard Lewis free throws sealed the win for the Magic.

Magic leading scorers

Vince Carter: 48 points (19 of 27 FGs, 6 of 10 3 PT FGs, 4 of 4 FTs), 7 rebounds
Dwight Howard: 25 points (8 of 13 FGs, 9 of 13 FTs), 12 rebounds, 4 blocks, 5 turnovers
Rashard Lewis: 18 points (5 of 9 FGs, 3 of 5 3 PT FGs), 2 steals

Overall Game Statistics

FG%: ORL 54.2% (45 of 83) NO 51.7% (46 of 89)
3 PT FG%: NO 50% (9 of 18) ORL 46.2% (12 of 26)
FT%: NO 84.2% (16 of 19) ORL 75% (21 of 28)
REB: ORL 41 (6 offensive) NO 33 (7 offensive)
AST/TO: NO 21/12 ORL 21/12
BENCH: NO 26 ORL 23

Other game notes and stats:

-Carter scored 34 of his 48 points in the second half; he shot 14 of 17 from the field in the second half
-Three Hornets combined for 83 points... Peja Stojakovic 29 points, 9 rebounds; Darren Collison 27 points, 9 assists; and David West 27 points; the three combined to shoot 33 of 59 from the field and 8 of 14 on threes
-Jameer Nelson scored 4 points on 2 of 8 shooting with 10 assists, 2 turnovers, but did not play in the fourth quarter
-Jason Williams led the Magic bench with 9 points on 3 of 7 shooting along with 4 rebounds and 3 assists
-Brandon Bass had 4 points in 10 minutes of action in the first half, while Ryan Anderson did not see any action
-James Posey and Darius Songaila each scored 10 points off the Hornets' bench
-The Magic outscored the Hornets 68-47 in the second half

Here is the complete recap and box score from nba.com.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 2:25 AM  

4 Comments:

  • At 2:51 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    A quote from Vince Carter, from the cbssports.com recap:

    "It's a new month. A new month brings new things. The past is the past, and it's going to be that," Carter said. "I've had rough months. That's just how it goes. And I know the expectations, and you work so hard to have an impressive resume, so it's expected each and every night. I understand that, and I don't have a problem with that.

    "It was a great feeling," Carter said. "When you're rolling like that for your team, it's a great feeling. We have so many weapons, and just because of that I never imagined to be able to come out here and have a game like that."

    From Stan Van Gundy:

    "I know one regular question I'm not getting tonight, 'What's wrong with Vince?' Anybody got that question tonight," he said, laughing. "That was incredible. That was unbelievable."

     

  • At 3:06 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    I think it was about 10 days ago I wrote that the All-Star Break should do wonders for Vince Carter, in terms of getting his nagging injuries to heal.

    Well, I was really wrong there; actually, having 3 games in 4 days has done wonders for Vince, as he's gotten better with each game.

    What a performance... an array of jumpers, three pointers, and drives to the basket.

    I bet Matt would say that the Magic showed their Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sides against the Hornets, as they were Mr. Hyde in the first half and Dr. Jekyll the second half.

    Quite a second half by the Magic to overcome the first half, which was probably their worst performance defensively in a half in Stan Van Gundy's tenure.

    I found it interesting that SVG played Jason Williams the entire fourth quarter instead of Jameer Nelson at the point. Nelson did a really nice job of dishing the ball with 10 assists the first 3 quarters, but J-Will did a nice job in the fourth quarter running things.

    The Magic have now won 9 of their last 11 games. What a finish it would be before the Break if the Magic could win at Chicago and at Cleveland.

     

  • At 9:58 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    Vince Carter's performance overshadows just about everything which was wrong with that game. I am not sure though that Vince has the full lift finishing at the rim. Taking the ball to the rim against a team with soft defense and no known shot blocker was the right thing for Vince to do, and that opened up the space for his jumpshots. I still think Coach Van Gundy should limit his minutes in CHI to have him ready for CLE game. That is, if we could LEAVE Orlando, as SVG jokingly said.

     

  • At 2:03 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    I love what SVG said when they asked him what got into vince,his response "i dont know"! I think we've seen VC play well for about two weeks now,last night he finally just exploded and you could tell his confidence was through the roof. But i warned no name guys could give us problems,collison completely dominated the game early and lead them to a 70 point half. Jameer needed the wake-up call and he sat where he needed to be to finish the game. To his credit he had 10 assists which made our offense stay together while we couldnt get stops.

     

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