Dwight Howard’s second consecutive game of 24 rebounds to go along with 20 points led the visiting Magic to a 100-79 rout of the Charlotte Bobcats Friday evening.
Howard filled up the stat sheet Friday night adding 4 assists and 4 blocks to go along with his 20-20 evening.
After losing their first game of the season the Magic improved to (3-1) with their third straight victory.
This contest was over from the beginning. Orlando opened the game on an 11-0 run and wouldn’t look back attacking the Bobcats with a balanced offense.
“It was great, the best one yet,” Van Gundy said. “I think we’ve improved a little bit every night, and by far this was the best one yet. I thought we opened with tremendous energy. I thought we defended well throughout. We hit a stretch in the third quarter where we got a little sloppy and they hurt us, but then the rest of the way we finished it out well.”
Magic forward Ryan Anderson shot 8-18 from the field finishing with 23 points. Jason Richardson’s added 16 points followed by Hedu Turkoglu’s 15.
It seemed Friday night that the Bobcats (1-2) used most of their energy two nights ago losing 96-95 to the Miami Heat.
“It didn’t seem like we had energy tonight,” Silas said. “The energy level was way down, it seemed. We got no fast-break buckets. We weren’t shooting the ball well. It’s just one of those games where nothing was happening in our favor tonight. At all.”
Howard’s presence in the post forced the Bobcats to shoot from the perimeter. Charlotte shot only 36.1% and just couldn’t get into a rhythm.
Van Gundy seemed very pleased with his teams performance saying, “I thought we made good decisions. There’s really not much on there to be upset about tonight.”
Orlando’s next game will be Sunday when they host the Toronto Raptors at 6pm.
