The Philadelphia 76ers were in town tonight looking to stay out of double digits in the loss column. That went out the window early when it took them almost 10 minutes to reach double digit points. The Magic had no such struggles, they came out firing like it it was a shoot around and poured in 29 1st quarter points.
Ryan Anderson was 4 for 5 from downtown in the 1st quarter. Orlando finished the game with a piping hot 60% three point percentage, and at no point in the game was that number below 50%. They are not going to lose games when that is the case. Sixers head coach Doug Collins admitted as much, “Their adjusted field goal percentage tonight with those threes was 63%, so you’re not going to beat them with them shooting that kind of percentage.”
This is a Sixer team that is second in the league in point differential, at nearly +10 points per game. Tonight the offense wasn’t there for them, and Collins summed up the struggles they had on defense, “Any time your 4 man can stretch the floor like that, sure they are [a tough cover], Turkoglu shoots the three and Jason Richardson shoots the three, Jameer Nelson can shoot it, and they come in with JJ Redick who can shoot it.”
The Magic attack starts with the inside out game, they dump the ball into Dwight Howard to see how the defense responds, and tonight the Sixers were consistently dropping guards down to dig on Howard. Once Howard began to anticipate that it’s just another page out of the playbook for the Magic as they whip the ball around the perimeter to get ahead of the defensive rotation and get a wide open jump shot. That is exactly how this team is built to play offense and the Sixers did little to disrupt that.
Orlando was never down in this game and they present serious match up problems for Philadelphia. Philly only played about 20 minutes of sharp basketball, while the rest of the night they just looked like they were trying to prevent a blow-out.
Jrue Holiday was having a tough time getting the offense to flow from the point guard position, only managing 5 assists while committing 5 turnovers. His counterpart, Philadelphia native Jameer Nelson, tied a career high with 14 assists while only committing two turnovers. Veteran leader Elton Brand acknowledged the out of character play of his team, “Turnovers, we average about 8, and we had 8 in the first half. Once we turned it over they got in the lanes, got it out in transition and hit those threes.”
The Sixers fought back to cut the lead to 6 a few times, but the Magic always managed to hit a couple timely shots to float it back to 10. Philadelphia’s will was finally broken midway through the 4th quarter as Orlando cruised to a 103-87 victory.
This a just another good win for the Magic in February. They have won 7 out of 9 games this month, with the only two losses coming in overtime to playoff teams. All this considering a few weeks ago they were dropping games to inferior teams and the locker room tension was palpable.
The Magic host the Bucks on Friday night.
By Bill Johnson
