Dwight Howard Leads Magic Past Celtics In OT

Dwight Howard (Photo by Keith Allison)

Dwight Howard finally earned his All-NBA First Team honors, scoring 32 points and grabbing 16 rebounds in game four. The Boston Celtics now lead the Orlando Magic three games to one.

Paul Pierce paced the Celtics with 32 points and 11 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough as the Magic won the over-time period 10-6 for a final score of 96-92.

Jameer Nelson had 23 points and 9 assists to help the Magic avoid elimination. Nelson’s banked three pointer in over-time put Orlando ahead for good. He followed that up with another trey just moments later.

A last second shot by Glenn “Big Baby” Davis was too little, too late. Rajon Rondo, the Celtics best player so far this post season, was held to 9 points and 8 assists.

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Magic Destroy Hawks, Win Game One

Dwight Howard (Keith Allison)

The Orlando Magic had not played an NBA game in a week. It wasn’t a stretch to suggest that they could be a little rusty in the first game in their series with the Atlanta Hawks.

Not so much.

The Magic outscored the Hawks 60-21 in the middle two quarters and ended up winning the game 114-71. Dwight Howard paced Orlando with 21 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocked shots.

The Atlanta Hawks had no answer. Their leading scorer was Josh Smith who had a pretty weak 14 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals. They have absolutely no chance of winning if Smith gets less than ten rebounds in a game and if he is their leading scorer then that is a bad sign.

Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford combined for 15 points and 8 turnovers. That is definitely not what the Hawks need out of their best two scorers. It just shows the vast difference in talent level between the two teams.

Vince Carter, who plays hard only when he wants to, decided to show up for Orlando. Carter had 20 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists. If he can play at even 70% of his ability every game, then this could be the best team in the NBA.

This series already looks like it may be a sweep. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I do not see any of Atlanta’s bigs being able to slow down Dwight Howard.

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Magic Get Balanced Attack In Win

The Orlando Magic are showing that they are not a one pony show. Vince Carter led a group of five Magic player in double figures with 19 points. NBA Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks. The team is now up two games to none over the Charlotte Bobcats.

Charlotte was led by Stephen Jackson who ended the night with 27 points. Gerald Wallace finished with 15 points, 6 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

The Bobcats are playing great defense so far in the series, but it is beginning to seem like they may not be able to score enough points to compete against the Magic. Charlotte is averaging only 83 points in the first two games of the series.

The two teams play again in Charlotte on Saturday afternoon.

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Magic Defeat Mavericks, Howard Has 20 Rebounds

Dwight Howard Has Monster Game

The Orlando Magic shut down the Dallas Mavericks offense on Thursday night and Dwight Howard was a big part of it. The best center in the NBA had 20 rebounds and 5 blocked shots as Dallas was held to 82 points.

This is the type of performance that may have clinched the NBA Defensive Player Of The Year award for Howard. He was the youngest player in history to win the award last season. He is the NBA leader in both blocked shots and rebounds this year.

Dirk Nowitzki Scores 24 For Dallas

Dirk Nowitzki was the lone bright spot for the Mavericks tonight as he scored 24 points. The loss allowed the Utah Jazz to tie them for the second seed in the Western Conference. With Oklahoma City and Portland coming up in the next week, they really need to be careful. A bad streak could drop them all the way down to the fifth seed in a matter of days.

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