Indiana Pacers hang tough in the clutch; Go 3-1 up courtesy of a 101-99 overtime victory over Orlando Magic in Game 4
On Saturday night here at the Amway Center in Orlando, Indiana Pacers churned out a 101-99 victory in Game 4 of this first round series, courtesy of two clutch free throws by George Hill with 2.2 left on the clock.
Hill, who scored the last 6 points for the Pacers in the ball game, finished off with 12 points on a an extremely poor 3 of 10 shooting night.
David West led the Pacers charge by notching up a double-double with 26 points and 12 rebounds. Danny Granger followed him up with 21 points of his own on a 9-for-20 shooting night. Roy Hibbert also played a significant by racking
his second double-double in as many games with 14 points and 11 boards while Darren Collison came off the bench to contribute 11 points and 9 assists.
Despite having six players making sizable contributions by crossing the double-digit mark in scoring, the Magic effort came up short by 2 points.
Jason Richardson scored 25 points and Glen Davis brought his A-game to contribute 24 points and 11 boards.
Jameer Nelson recorded 12 points and 11 assists while the newly crowned ‘Most Improved Player of the Season’ Ryan Anderson and Hedo Turkoglu contributed 11 points each. J.J. Redick also came off the bench to add 10 points to the
Magic cause.
Orlando raced to 5-0 advantage and led by 16-10 deep into the first quarter. However Indiana ended the period strongly with a 12-3 to take a 22-19 lead into the second.
Pacers carried the momentum into the second quarter by starting off on a 12-4 spurt to put a double digit distance between them and their opponents at 34-23. Leandro Barbosa scored the first seven points in that run. The Magic
response was immediate and emphatic. They outscored the Pacers 19-8 in the passage that followed to tie the game at 42, before conceding a 46-44 lead at halftime.
The third quarter saw the Pacers display resilience worthy of the playoff stage. They managed to keep the Magic charge at bay while slowly building towards an ample advantage. Even though, the spirited Magic were able to cut the
advantage down to 4 at the 3:21 mark, but Indiana responded 4 points from West and a three ball from Collison to get their advantage above the double-digit mark.
West added 2 more points courtesy of a Collison assist to lead 73-61 before going into the fourth.
Indiana carried that momentum into the fourth quarter to start off with a 9-2 run capped off by a Granger lay up to hold a 19 point lead.
However as we saw in Game 1, you just can`t write this Magic team off and the capacity crowd of 18846 was treated to a similar comeback. Orlando managed to put together a 14-0 run to make it a two possession game.
The Pacers held of that charge to again build up an 8 point advantage but courtesy of two triples, 1 each from Richardson and Redick and a couple of free throws from Davis in between, the game was tied at 89 in regulation time.
In the overtime, Indiana looked to put this game to bed by scoring 6 quick unanswered points but the Magic spirit was not to be crumpled, they responded with 6 unanswered points of their own to tie the game up at 95.
Hill, who had been struggling to score for most part of the game, came up big in the remaining portion by recording the next six points for Indiana, 4 from the free throw line and 2 from a jump shot. Even though Davis carried the
Magic scoring by responding with 4 points on the other hand, however his last and the most crucial shot of the game came up short to allow the Pacers to hold on by 2 in the end.
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