A frustrated and dejected Dwight Howard sat emotionless in his locker following his team’s first round playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks.
As the media gathered in the Magic locker room for post game interviews Howard sat and listened to Ace Hood’s remix of his hit song “Hustle Hard” on his cell phone.
Last year around this time the Magic were enjoying a breezy first round against the Hawks as their series played more like an exhibition match instead of a playoff series.
Guess Dwight took solace in the lyrics of the song as the chorus repeats, “hustle…hustle…hustle…hard!” Guess what the Magic will have to do? Hustle hard for that next win.
Orlando dropped the first game of their first round playoff series against the Hawks 103 – 93 behind Joe Johnson’s 25 points and Jamal Crawford’s 23 to take a 1 – 0 series lead.
Last year in this same first round playoff match-up the Magic literally man handled this Atlanta team. Orlando beat up on the Hawks by a combined 57 points in the first two games of last year’s series on their way to sweeping the Hawks four to nil.
This year Atlanta seemed determined to avoid last season’s embarrassing showing as they met up with the Magic at Orlando’s Amway Center to start the 2011 playoff season. Oh—and the Hawks have a new head coach as Mike Woodson and his eyebrows were sent packing in the off-season.
The Magic were able to keep-up with the, ahem, high flying Hawks but they soon flew the coop as they outscored Orlando 38 – 29 in the 2nd quarter.
Again, what a difference a year makes.
Last season Atlanta couldn’t score a point if Jesus gave it to them and in the first game of this year’s series not only do they score 103 points but they hold Hedo Turkoglu, Brandon Bass, and Jason Richardson to a combined 10 points for the entire contest.
Orlando’s Dwight Howard scored a playoff career high 46 points, snagged 19 rebounds, and was responsible for Orlando’s first 10 points of the ballgame. The towering center was pretty much unstoppable in the first half and Atlanta head coach Larry Drew was ok with how his team defended Howard.
“From a strategic standpoint making the decision to play him head-up, it worked in our favor,” said Drew. Atlanta gave up 31 first half points to Howard but Orlando still trailed going into halftime by a score of 55 – 48.
Howard was on his game in an official way but his teammates decided to watch instead of playing along with him.
Remember when Lebron would drop 50 points and the Cavs would still lose because his teammates would, you know, just stand there and watch? Well, that’s kind of what happened with Dwight’s squad tonight.
Orlando’s starting five, minus the big man in the middle, went a combined 2 – 15 from the field in the first half with Hedo Turkoglu leading the way as he doubled down with only four points.
Starting point guard Jameer Nelson was able to provide a spark in the 3rd quarter as the Magic pulled to within 16 of the Hawks but it didn’t seem to matter in the end.
Think Stan had some concerns? Yeah, the scruffy voiced coach was disappointed in the way his team played.
“We couldn’t really play anything that they did. We had trouble with their post-ups, we had trouble with their perimeter guys breaking us down on the dribble, we had trouble with their pick and rolls…we didn’t have any defensive answers,” stated Magic coach Stan Van Gundy.
Stan my man from the way it looks, your Magic team just got out-coached.
The Hawks shot 51% from the field and 42% from three point line. What game did Orlando play, because from the looks of it they were guarding a team in a different gym.
From a team standpoint the consensus was to play better defense and to get better defensive stops when these two teams meet again on Tuesday at Amway.
A frustrated Howard said the team would come back stronger in the 2nd game. Howard also recorded his 1st playoff technical tonight.
“It’s frustrating that we lost but it’s the first game. We’ll come back in the second game with a better effort.”
Fellas I hate to tell you this but, if that’s all you can come up with then it will be the Hawks moving on to the 2nd round and this Magic team will be left to pack up their lockers from a season lost in the heat of the Orlando summer.
The Magic and Hawks square off in game two of this best of seven series Tuesday night at the new Amway Center with tip-off scheduled for 7:30pm.
-JH
