Dwight Howard’s big night carries Orlando Magic over Indiana Pacers, 107-94: NBA Recap
Dwight Howard’s days at Orlando Magic may be numbered, but that is not stopping him from pulling off monster nights.
On Sunday, against a struggling Indiana Pacers outfit which had lost three on a trot coming into the game, ‘D-12’ erupted with 30 points and 13 rebounds in just 37 minutes leading Magic to a 107-94 win.
J.J. Redick scored 18 points and added a career-high nine assists; Ryan Anderson had 12 points and 9 rebounds while Quentin Richardson, starting the game in place of Hedo Turkoglu, who was serving a one game suspension, finished
the night with 10 points as Magic won the season series 3-1.
The game was completely a one sided affair and the Pacers never managed to take the lead or even draw the game after the first 4 minutes. Paul George led them with 22 points, 8 rebounds and 3 steals; Tyler Hansbrough added 19 off
the bench and Danny Granger posted 18. George however didn’t seem concerned about the 4-game skid and was confident that the Pacers can overcome that;
We've been here before," George said. "At the same time, we're still in a good position. We're still a good team. Just keep working. We have a day off (Monday) and that will be much needed."
Early in the game Indiana held a slender 8-7 lead, before Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson combined for a 9-2 run to take a 16-10 lead. A Hibbert layup later, Magic blew open an 18-8 spurt to stretch their advantage to 34-20. The
first quarter ended with the Magic ahead by 36-22, which quickly increased to 20 points, courtesy of an 8-2 run in which Chris Duhon had two 3’s.
Magic increased their lead to 56-33 going into the last three minutes of the first half, but the Pacers tried to come back with a 12 -0 run and went into the locker room trailing by 45-56.
Granger made a jump shot to start the third quarter and brought the deficit within single figures, but by the time the period ended, Magic had again opened up a 20 plus lead. A Howard finger roll layup took the scores to 91-64
deep in the stanza, before Hansbrough made two from the stripe to take a 66-91 scoreline into the last 12 minutes.
Orlando kept on pounding the Pacers early in the fourth and ballooned their lead to 29 points nearly midway. However, they relaxed after that, allowing Indiana a 19-3 burst in garbage time. Howard was not impressed by the late
slip-up and urged his team to maintain the intensity throughout;
"We have to do a better job of putting four quarters together," He said. "We have a quarter where we play great, then we kind of let up. We've got to work on that."
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