Well, it wasn’t pretty but they got the job done. The Magic survived a late scare and picked up a big road win to keep pace with the Boston Celtics. Lost in all the hoopla over Alonzo Mourning was the fact that Dwight Howard became the youngest player in NBA history to record 5,000 rebounds. That stat is a little misleading, especially since Dwight didn’t go to college, but impressive nonetheless.
Orlando finished the game on a 10-3 run and did what a championship caliber team is supposed to do: find a way to win on the road when things aren’t going your way.
In his post game press conference Stan Van Gundy said the Magic made two good plays the entire game, but as it turned out that’s all his team would need to earn the victory.
The Magic also did a nice job of finding Dwight in the post down the stretch. We’ve written here on multiple occasions that his teammates can forget about him late in games. Tonight, Dwight had nine touches in the fourth quarter alone, that resulted in seven points (3-of-3 from the field, 1-of-4 from the line).
Three keys revisited:
1. Don’t let the others beat you. Yes. Dwyane Wade got his 42 points. The next best for the Heat? Mario Chalmers with 13 and Jermaine O’Neal with 10.
2. Reserves need to play well. No. Don’t get me wrong, the bench wasn’t terrible, and J.J. Redick did hit a couple of key free throws to ice the game. But all-in-all it was a less than stellar performance by the Magic reserves. As a unit they finished with a +/- of -15.
3. Make your free throws. Yes. 21-of-27 (77.8%) is as good as this team will do.
Key figures:
10-of-19: The Magic’s final shooting numbers from behind the three-point line. The Magic live and die by the three, and tonight, especially in the third quarter, they were thriving by hitting deep shots.
16-of-34: Dwyane Wade’s shooting numbers from the field. He may have finished the game with 42 points, but it took 34 field goal attempts and 13 free throw attempts to get them.
6: The number of fouls recorded by Courtney Lee.
16: The number of minutes Lee played in the game. That’s what happens when a rookie is assigned to guard an MVP candidate.
33: The number worn by former Heat center Alonzo Mourning. Zo had his number retired by Miami at halftime.
43: The number of minutes the halftime ceremony took to complete. I know it was a special night, but come on Miami.
Magic’s best: Rashard Lewis. Every time the Heat tried to cheat down and double-team Dwight Howard, there was Rashard to bury a three. He finished the game with 21 points, but did it very efficiently, shooting 8-of-12 from the field, including 5-of-6 from beyond the arc.
Magic’s worst: It was a rough night for Courtney Lee, as mentioned above. The rookie fouled out in just 16 minutes of play, and was torched by D-Wade all night. The best thing about Lee’s evening was his resiliency. Even though he wasn’t getting any love from the refs, he still tried his best on defense and hit two big three-pointers in the third quarter.
Defending Dwight: I don’t know what’s wrong with Jermaine O’Neal, but I think his days as a major contributer to an NBA playoff team are pretty much over. Dwight did pretty much anything he wanted against the former all-star, finishing with 22 points and 18 rebounds. Dwight was 8-of-11 from the field and 6-of-9 from the free throw line. He also held O’Neal to just 10 points.
Up next: The Magic return home to play the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night at 7:30. With Cleveland coming to town on Friday, the Magic have to make sure they don’t overlook the Raptors, especially with the Celtics showing no signs of slowing down in the race for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.