Ryan Anderson’s career high 30 points led the visiting Orlando Magic to a 102-93 victory over the New York Knicks Monday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
JJ Redick scored 21 points followed by Hedu Turkoglu’s 15 for the Magic.
Howard would be held in check by first year Knick Tyson Chandler scoring only 8 points and grabbing 10 boards.
With all the focus on the All-Star center Howard, Orlando took advantage shooting 49% from beyond the arc including Anderson’s 7 for 13.
“Early in the game Ryan was missing, but he stuck with it and he played big for us tonight,” Howard said.
The Magic’s ability to score and hit shots from deep takes the pressure off Dwight, giving the Magic a balanced attack that’s tough to defend.
“It’s a matter of picking your poison,” Redick said, “but obviously if we see something early on like tonight, they doubled from the get-go pretty much, that allowed us to really play through him, throwing the ball into him and not necessarily throwing it to him for him to score, but for other guys to get shots.”
Carmelo Anthony lead the Knicks with 33 points followed by Iman Shumpert and Toney Douglas’ 12.
The Struggling Knicks have now lost three games in a row, unable to get any type of offense going.
“We’re not making no shots right now. It seems like we can’t shoot the ball in the ocean right now. Everybody. We get stops and then at the other end we can’t score the basketball. I don’t know what is it,” Anthony said. “We’ve just got to get out of that shooting slump. We’ve got to start making shots and it makes it easy on the defensive end. We are playing defense but when you can’t score the basketball it makes it hard.”
The Magic (9-3) have won 4 in a row and 8 of their last 10 games. Orlando will host the Charlotte Bobcats Tuesday night at 7pm.
