Dwight Howard shines as Orlando Magic beat Indiana Pacers 85-81 – NBA Recap
Indiana Pacers were on a bit of a roll before they confronted the Orlando Magic on Saturday at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The visiting Magic disrupted the Pacers streak after beating them in a closely contested match 85-81. The
game swayed back and forth before Magic finally got the win.
This was the third straight victory for Orlando, marked with Dwight Howard’s thrilling performance as he scored an impressive 27 points including 7 of 10 free throw attempts. Jason Richardson added 17 and forward Ryan Anderson
came up with 12 points for his team.
For Indiana Pacers, 5 players hit double figures. Forward Danny Granger was on the song with 19 points, Tyler Hansbrough came off the bench to collect 17, Paul George managed to add 13 points and lastly Roy Hibbert along with Darren
Collison came up with 10 points each.
"This is one of the games where shots didn't fall," Hansbrough said. "I think the defence was pretty good and I'm not worried about my shooting. I think it will come."
The opening frame remained fairly even and the Magic were having a lead of two points with 23-21 as the game entered into the 2nd quarter.
The following quarter also remained closely contested and the Pacers managed to claw off the 2 point lead and going into halftime the score remained tied at 39 each.
It was the third quarter in which all of the action took place. The Magic came out of the interval all guns blazing and went on a 14 – 2 run that gave them a 12 points lead midway through the period. Indiana tried to claw back
but weren’t able to make significance progress against Orlando, who were leading by 9 points at the end of the segment, with Magic 62 and Pacers 53.
The game got physical in third quarter as Granger tried to make the inbound pass in front of the Magic’s bench he was confronted by Quentin Richardson. Richardson shoved Granger and technicals were called on them both. Later, Richardson
was ejected from the game for picking up another technical.
In the decisive quarter, with 06:5 seconds to go, Granger narrowed the score to 81-83 for Pacers, but when Anderson scored two free throws the Magic advantage reached 4 points with 04:2 seconds in hand.
The Pacers were never able to make a comeback and saw the game peter out at 85-81.
Orlando head coach Stan Van Gundy commented after the dramatic win,
"Both teams played really, really hard. When you have these kinds of schedules in the league you're going to have some games like that. It was our ninth game in 13 days and their ninth in 14. Basically nobody could make a shot
and there were 41 turnovers in the game.”
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