It wasn’t easy. Actually it was cake. After four days of rest, Orlando comes back against the Minnesota Timberwolves Wednesday night, with a score of 128-86 and setting a franchise record of most points scored in a first half.
—Talk about patience.
With the loss against the Miami Heat on Friday and a game against the New York Knicks being canceled on Tuesday due to safety concerns at Madison Square Garden, where debris fell into the arena during overnight cleaning of asbestos-related materials, Stan Van Gundy’s team was ready to show what they could really do.
“I was eager to just play,” Van Gundy said. “When two of your last four games have been called off, I thought that it was a victory just that this one started.”
— A little twist.
When you looked down at the court, you saw something different. Van Gundy’s starting line up had Lewis down at small forward and Anderson at power forward to try and neutralize Minnesota’s power forward Kevin Love. It worked. Not only had Minnesota not won on the road since February, but they were also licking their wounds from a 32-point loss to Miami the night before. It was a Florida tornado.
Carter scored the first two points for the Magic, his first of 20 followed by Anderson who scored 19 points in his court debut at the regular season. As the Timberwolves led the game for the first two minutes, Anderson with three consecutive 3-pointers stopped that lead dead in its track. Magic was now 15-12.
Dribble after dribble, the Timberwolves who had two lead players, Johnny Flynn and Michael Beasley, sit out due to injuries, watched as the Magic opened their lead…17, Rashard Lewis makes 7-foot hook shot…23, Vince Carter makes 23-foot three point jumper… 30, Marcin Gortat makes dunk…39, Dwight Howard makes layup…. 45, JJ Redick makes 25-foot three-point jumper.
For the first four minutes in the second quarter the scoreboard was a dead stop for Minnesota who finished the quarter 33 points behind. Magic 78, Minnesota 45
—This was just the first half.
If the lead wasn’t enough, Howard showed no mercy as the game progressed. He finished with 8 blocks on Wednesday, 6 were in the third quarter. He now has 4 games of 8 blocks or more since the start of the 2008-09 seasons. No other player even has two such games.
With 7-minutes left, one swat had the ball flying into the stands. A new meaning to the word nosebleed seats. The arena filled with the Superman theme song as Howard took a much-needed rest on the sidelines. He finished the game with 18 points and 16 rebounds on top of his 8 blocks.
— A shot at redemption.
A different line-up, teamwork and another win. The bumped and bruised Orlando coming from a loss of 96-70 to the Miami Heat on Friday was nowhere to be seen. They created havoc and broke records.
“I told the guys after the game that we have to do this every night if we want to be a championship team,” center Dwight Howard said.
The Magic are now 2-1 in the regular season. They play the New Jersey Nets this Friday, Nov 5th at home.
| LEADERS
Points Rebounds Assists Steals Blocks |
ORLANDO MINNESOTA
V. Carter –20 K. Love– 23 D. Howard –16 K. Love — 9 J. Nelson — 9 S. Telfair — 5 V. Carter — 2 C. Brewer — 2 D. Howard — 8 D.Milicic — 3
|
By Fernanda Barros
Special to West Orlando News Online
