By Karsceal Turner
Kill all that noise about Orlando being rusty after eight days rest. Does a 43-point thrashing sound like rusty hinges to you? For those who may have tuned out early the final score of 114-71 is by no means inflated. The win gave the Magic a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals in front of 17,461 fans at Amway Arena Tuesday. It also elevated their playoff record to 5-0 for the 2010 Playoffs. The key for Orlando was gritty play, sound defense, and some tweaking and adjusting on behalf of Dwight Howard. Oh, shooting 52 percent from the floor doesn’t hurt either.
It was the most lopsided playoff defeat in Atlanta Hawks history and the second-biggest playoff rout for the Magic, eclipsed only by a 47-point victory over Boston from the first round in 1995. The Magic outscored Atlanta 60-21 in the middle two quarters.
The Atlanta Hawks came into this series fresh off a drawn-out series against the Milwaukee Bucks. The preceding series was much tougher than many people expected. Atlanta needed a gutty Game 6 win in Milwaukee just to keep their season alive. They finished off the Bucks with a 95-74 rout in the deciding game then promptly turned around and had their rear-ends handed to them by a rested, healthy, focused Magic team ready to take care of business at home.
As determined as the Hawks were to not go out the way the Charlotte Bobcats did, one could also surmise the Magic sort of wanted to put doubts to rest concerning their sweep. Basically they wanted to prove it wasn’t a fluke. Mission accomplished. Again I say, kill that noise about rust.
Kill the noise about Dwight Howard not establishing himself, asserting himself, or staying in the game. It is common knowledge that in the previous series he was good for picking up two fouls and sitting early in each game. During the Charlotte series he couldn’t stay on the floor because of foul issues. It got him nicknamed “Foul on you”, by his fellow Magicians. As a result, he averaged 9.8 points and 9.3 rebounds.
Any Magic fan worth their salt knows that these numbers are way off. In Tuesday’s opener against the Hawks, Howard was good for 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting (five were dunks), snagged 12 boards and swatted five Atlanta shots into the stands. I think this settles the issue of his ability to stay on the floor. He was only hit with one foul at halftime. By the way, the Magic were up 53-33 at the half. By this time the majority of doubts were shaken.
Air France Cleared For Take-off
Mickael Pietrus (Air France) entered the game at the start of the second quarter and let his play answer any lingering questions about his ankle. He drilled his first three point attempt and looked at the crowd as if to say “I’m baaack!” After a Dwight Howard block, Jason Williams led a break and lobbed it to Pietrus for a dunk, which of course brought the crowd to its feet and set a tone for the rest of the game. He finished with eight points, two boards, two assists, and a steal. With 1:17 left in the contest and the score 106-64 Pietrus nailed a three giving the Magic a 109-64 lead Bum ankle, what bum ankle?
Indeed, during the third quarter, it was difficult to suppress a yawn because basically the game was out of reach and out of control. Only brief flashes of celebrities on the gigantic monitor, peeks of the Magic Cheerleaders in the stands, and the announcement about the 2012 all-star weekend soon to be held at the new Amway Arena was enough to keep the exuberant juices flowing as we either waited for another high-flying facial or three-point bomb, time to tick away.
When Stan Van Gundy emptied his bench, everyone got in on the point-fest. Every single Magic player scored. Jameer Nelson was good for 19 along with 5 rebounds, followed by J.J. Reddick added 10, while Rashard Lewis finished with a quiet nine.
Marcin Gortat may have been good for only nine but he clearly was one of the more exciting Magic players who put in work. He added six boards and two assists and a hell of a lot of energy. Matt Barnes scored all four of his points from the line and Jason Williams had a quiet deuce. Anthony Johnson also came in and contributed his two cents. But hey, these are the names you always read.
How about Ryan Anderson and Brandon Bass with four and six points respectively? They received standing ovations each time they touched the ball. It seems by the time “Trash Time” began, everything the Magic threw at the basket scored a bucket.
Van Gundy remained humble in his assessments of the win. “I think the challenge is not to get carried away with the score. It was one of those nights where everything just snowballed.”
Hawks Simply Couldn’t get Airborne
Hawks coach Mike Woodson was as solemn as could be after the loss. “We competed and came out ready to play but we had nothing the rest of the way,” he said. “This Orlando team has played well all season. No one was able to make shots. It was an ugly game. We’re definitely going to have to come in and work on some shooting.”
Former Gator turned Hawk, Al Horford said the snowball effect was the last thing the Hawks wanted to happen. He was looked upon to challenge Howard, but it simply wasn’t happening. On offense he was only good for four points on 1-of-7 shooting. Meanwhile, leading scorer Joe Johnson dropped only 10 points and Sixth-man Supreme” Jamal Crawford was 1-of-11 for a total of five points three of which were free-throws. Josh Smith added 14 points and Zaza Pachulia had 12 points for the Hawks who simply could not get it going on 36 percent shooting for the entire game.
Horford’s reactions were exactly what they needed to be this early in the series. “It (the game) kind of got away from us. It’s one loss,” Horford said. “We can’t let it be a snowball effect. We have to figure something out and play hard.”
Figure something out right. Let us not forget, the Magic won three of the four regular-season meetings against the Hawks by an average of 22 points. This however isn’t the regular season. As Emeril the chef loves to say, in the playoffs teams have to “kick it up a notch”.
Vince Carter had a synopsis of the Magic’s mindset going into this game. “Everybody was in tune about what had to be done from the jump. We wanted to come out sharp and deliver the first blow at home. It was important for our intensity to be at a high level.”
Still, Orlando fans may want to pump their brakes just a tad and remember this is only game one. Orlando did what it needed to do at home and this is only the first game in a best-of-seven series. The Magic will certainly need to keep the pressure at a high level if they want to recapture the Magic of last season…where they made it to the finals.
