Karsceal Turner – I Got NEXT!
Tobias Harris slammed home a fast-break pass from Maurice Harkless at the buzzer to give the Orlando Magic a 103-102 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night.
With the Thunder leading 102-101 in the closing seconds, Kevin Durant missed a jumper to set up the last-second play, which was reviewed by officials and upheld.
Mental mistakes will bury you
All I could do was shake my head as I saw the play over and over. My hometown team, (the Thunder) may be one of the hottest teams in the league with a 40-plus win record but that game against Orlando got away because of mental breakdowns. Since we’re talking some 80 plus games in a season, such mental and defensive breakdowns are bound to occur. As a hometown type of guy I pray lightning doesn’t strike twice later when it REALLY counts.
Harris led the Magic with 18 points, followed by Arron Afflalo with 16. Orlando’s bench outscored Oklahoma City’s 36-23. Durant led the Thunder with 29 points and 12 assists. Serge Ibaka dropped 26.
The loss was just the second in 14 games for Oklahoma City. Durant’s points and assists accounted for half of his team’s points in the first half. The Magic, as always, showed grit, shooting 52 percent themselves for the half. But they couldn’t get down with Oklahoma City’s 8-for-12 shooting from 3 along with 17 assists.
Kevin Durant confirmed my earlier comments about mental breakdowns. The Thunder shot above 70 percent early on and led by as many as 17 points in the first half. Not so much after intermission. Durant was good for only 12 points on 5-for-13 shooting in the second half. He was 1-for-7 in the fourth.
The OKC meltdown begins and ends with Durant
“We couldn’t do anything (in the second half). “We were just a step slow,” Durant said. “We kept running the same plays. We didn’t help on the back side. We let guys cut to basket. … There were just mental breakdowns.”
Rookie Victor Oladipo, who had grabbed the rebound on Durant’s miss with 2.9 seconds left and passed ahead to Harkless to start the break, pounded his chest after the play and screamed, “This is our floor!” as the crowd roared. As long as I lived in Florida (a good 20 years), I’ve dug the Magic. HOWEVER, Oklahoma City is my home.
The win gives the Magic their first four-game home winning streak in two years. It also snaps the Thunder’s five-game winning streak in the series.
The Magic held the Thunder to just 37 points in the second half.
“We came in at halftime and watched the film and talked about how we could help ourselves,” Magic head coach Jacques Vaughn said. “There were numerous possessions in the first half where we could have been in better places … and we did that in the second half and that was the difference.”
The 15-37 Magic meet the red hot Indiana Pacers (39-10). Sunday, I’m covering that one too, let us see together if the Magic can extend their winning streak. After all, I LIVE in Florida.
