[G-Force]

The game is well underway with the score tied at 39 with seven minutes to go in the second quarter. After an eight point first quarter deficit, the Magic have tied it up. So far, Howard and Nelson cannot miss and have 22 points between them and the Magic are shooting at a .645 clip.

Wow, now the MAgic are up 43-39.

G-Force

 

[G-Force]

At the half, Orlando is up 56-53. They are still shooting a blistering .581, but Portland is shooting the ball pretty well themselves. The Magic have only shot 4 free throws so far at a home game, compared to the Blazers with 11. Hopefully, that will improve in the second half.

 

[orlmagicmnvikings]

WOW! Dwight Howard just let the ref get an earful!!! He was screaming at the ref! And rightfully so. Another great game for Howard! This guy is simply amazing!

 

[G-Force]

Magic are up by 11 with seven minutes to go in the game - that's alot of time. Howard is at 19 and 18; can he go for 20 points and 20 boards tonight and lead his team to victory?


G-Force

 

[deanwoof]

YEAH! Being from portland, I LOVE THIS VICTORY!!

 

[G-Force]

Yeah, I'm talking to myself, but someone should congratulate the Magic on theri win, 104-89. Howard and Nelson had big games and The Franchise contributed 12 points and nine assists with only three TO's.

Orlando killed Portland on the boards, 49-29 - wow. That will help a team win games.

G-Force

 

[HKF]

Howard is going to be scary good. I mean, he's unstoppable on the boards. You can't teach that.

 

[patrick_wandalowski]

nelson has had a key role in locking up some victories this year. A healthy grant hill and a trade for a decent center would allow the magic to make amove up the standings.

 

[JNice]

WOW! Dwight Howard just let the ref get an earful!!! He was screaming at the ref! And rightfully so. Another great game for Howard! This guy is simply amazing!

I was so happy to see Dwight with that fire.

It is still completely frustrating to see how the guards on this team miss Dwight when he has good position down low. I was watching the game at my parents house this evening and I kept *****ing to my Dad about how they need to give Dwight the damned ball and he was laughing at me. Then Dwight leaves the game and all of a sudden they dump the ball down to Cato down low 2-3 plays in a row to let him go to work. Wtf? Drop it down to Cato and not Dwight? Ridiculous.

I don't know what level Dwight will eventually reach, but his ceiling is nearly as high as anyone in quite some time. He got 21 pts tonight and even though I caught the game late in the first quarter, from that point on he did not get a lot of plays run for him on offense. I think a few years down the road it would be plausible that Dwight could put up something like a 28 ppg, 16 rpg season.

 

[X-Factor]

I would have been so humiliated if we had lost to Portland. I was getting a little afraid towards the end of the second quarter when we were down 8, but we put it out pretty easily in this one. I was also pleasently surprised with the play of Jameer Nelson. He had a great cotrol over the offense, and was dropping shot after shot. Our shooting was great all around, shooting 53% from the floor and even our threes were dropping more often then usual.
Box Score

 

[X-Factor]

Post-Game Quotes

“Well after the first quarter I felt, obviously, we did a much better job, but I thought in the first quarter we gave up 17 points off of second shot opportunities and that’s what they ended up with for the game. We just weren’t keeping the ball in front of us. We gave up a lot of dribble penetration which forced our big guys to step up and help a lot. And then we didn’t rotate back and get bodies on people and from that point on we did a much better job containing the basketball and keeping people off the glass. Jameer came in and gave us a huge lift. Dwight had a great game on the glass. I’m just happy we were able to get another win.”

“It’s not like he forces offense. He basically takes what the defense gives him. He’s a penetrator and if he can penetrate and get to the basket sometimes it’s a score and sometimes it’s an open shot for other people. He’s also a very good jump shooter so if teams are going to back off him a little if he comes off a high screen. He’s open at 18, 19, 20 feet. That’s a good shot for him to pull up and shoot that shot. But I don’t think he ever puts his game ahead of the other people on the floor which is an important thing for a guard. It’s to make the game easier for the other four players that he’s playing with and I think he does that.”

(On Darius Miles): “I thought to hold him to four for 14 shooting, eight points, two rebounds. I thought Tony did a heck of a job while he was on him. I thought Kelvin did a heck of a job while he was on him. You know the minutes that he was guarding him. We had to stop one of those guys. Telfair had a much more productive game than I would have liked. But you can live with it when you’re holding a guy like Randolph to 22. I thought we were going to turn Joel Pryzbilla to an All-Star in the first quarter. We finally got him under control. That just turned the game around.”

“I think we were over 50 the other night. I’m not sure, but it’s nice to see the 51s and the 52s instead of 31 and 32. With us it just comes down to shot selection. We just have to make sure we exercise good shot selection and usually when we do that we’re ok, but sometimes we have a tendency to get a little jump shot happy. We did that tonight in the third quarter. I don’t think the ball went inside in the post until there were maybe 2-3 minutes left in the quarter which I wasn’t pleased with. Fortunately we were able to play good defense and still keep the lead.” -Brian Hill

"Any time you give a team 35 points in a quarter obviously you’re going to be behind, that’s a lot of points to come back from. We were down by maybe 11 or 12 points, I think Keyon or whoever came off the bench gave us a spark and that gave us the momentum after that."

"I’m always confident, I just have to take every game as a stepping stone and learn from certain situations and certain things I need to do in practice."

"With Sebastian up front, he’s the go to guy. I respect his game and I respect him as a person, there’s nothing personal out there between me and Sebastian, at least on my end. I just think that everyone keeps throwing that in my face and I’m sure they throw at his face and I’d wish they’d stop doing that."

"I think Dwight is a quiet leader. He goes out there and works hard in practice. He gets shots up and does extra things even though he’s out there playing 38 or 40 minutes a game. So when a superstar like Dwight is out there playing hard that positive energy goes through your team."

"Finishing the game is more important right now. Eventually I’m going to be starting in this league; I know that in my heart. But right now my role is my role and I’m going to accept my role and do what I can for my team." -Jameer Nelson

"We were determined to come back, especially on the rebounding side, just try and come back and be a presence."

"I didn’t even know, I was just trying to get a win and we got one and it felt good."

"I think Jameer (Nelson) and Deshawn (Stevenson) stepped up big time for us down the stretch. They hit some key shots and that’s what got us the game. The shots they made really shut Portland down tonight and hopefully we can continue this nice little streak we got going on."

"Well Jameer is just out there playing hard. He comes off that bench and brings us that extra spark that we need. I was happy for the little man. He went out there and he gave his all." -Dwight Howard

LINK

 

[deanwoof]

who was guarding dwight for most of the game? if it was randolph, then i'm not surprised at all since he cant guard a chair. yes he's that bad on defense.