Greg Monroe has a double-double night as the Detroit Pistons defeat Orlando Magic 102-95 - NBA Recap
With Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard missing his second consecutive game due to a sore back, Pistons centre, Greg Monroe powered up a 22-11 double-double night as the Detroit Pistons defeated the Orlando Magic 102-95 at the Palace
of Auburn Hills, Detroit, MI.
Orlando have now lost 4 games consecutively. They went into the game without three of their top scorers in Jameer Nelson, Ryan Anderson and Dwight Howard and all three of them were surely missed on the night.
With their biggest defensive and rebounding option missing in action, Orlando`s numbers in the two departments suffered a wounding blow. Piston were able to out-rebound their counterparts 45-30 and with no ‘superman’ to defend
the paint, the Piston had 56 points in the paint as compared to Orlando`s 30.
Orlando centre, Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis managed to score a career high of 31 points and hauled down 10 boards as he tried very hard to help the Magic cause. Hedo Turkoglu also had a hot hand in the start of the game when he managed
to score 11 points in opening period only. He however had a cold rest of the night and ended the game with 16 points.
Ben Gordon contributed 18 points, Jason Maxiell and Tayshaun Prince also contributed well with 15 points each for the Pistons. However the key to winning this game was not scoring, even though they shot the ball 56.6% from the
field, but the sharing of the ball as the Pistons played the ‘one more pass’ offense which enabled them to notch up a total of 25 assists on the night.
The stats might suggest that the Pistons dominated the game but this was not the case in the night. The game was very closely contested for the first three periods and there was no splitting the two teams as the scores were all
tied up at 74 each after three quarter played.
Things however opened up in the last quarter as the Pistons went on a 17-4, pushing the lead to 91-78. The Magic did try to come back into the game but the Pistons lead proved to be insurmountable and Detroit took this one, making
it their 12 victory out of the last 15 against the Magic at the Palace.
For Magic, the most disappointing part of the game was that were let down by their two experienced guards, Jason Richardson and J.J. Redick who combined together only to have one successful three out of nine attempts on the night.
Richardson had 10 points on the night and Redick had disappointing night with 4 points. Chris Duhon contributed 13 points but all to a losing cause.
On the night, Piston`s reserve centre, Ben Wallace crossed another milestone as he grabbed his 7000th career rebound in the second quarter. He managed to grab a total of 6 rebounds on the night.
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