More notes from Orlando's victory over Cleveland

• Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon-Journal is one of the most well respected NBA journalists on the planet. He offers his thoughts on last night's game in this post. He points out that even if a foul had been called on Hedo Turkoglu on the last play of the game, the Cavaliers would not have gotten free throws out of it. He also gives the Magic some credit for being a good team, but also attributes some of the Magic's success last night to poor Cleveland defense:

  Now, the Magic have a great offensive style. Howard is unguardable, Nelson and Arroyo are too quick for any of the Cavs guards, and when the Cavs help inside on drives or Howard the Magic have 3-point shooters everywhere. They have a chance to be a great team. 31 assists in 40 baskets for Orlando. Part of it is fantastic offensive basketball. But the Cavs are ranked 25th in field goal defense in the NBA, last year they were in the top seven or eight all year. That is where they must improve.

• No team outscored the other team by more than 3 points in any given quarter.
• Visual proof (from NBA.com's highlights) that Keith Bogans had his number called in the clutch last night.
• LeBron James isn't happy that the Magic beat his Cavaliers last night, partially due to a controversial no-call at the end of the game. I respect that he refuses to blame the officials for the final result. From Brian Schmitz's recap in the Sentinel:

  "[Turkoglu] got some of the ball, but he had part of my arm as well," James said. "I never get into referee battles or player battles. I think we had opportunities to win the ballgame and they made more plays than us."

• This gameflow, courtesy of PopcornMachine, really gives a good feel for just how close the game was last night.

And now, more general stuff:

• It didn't take long for Dwight Howard to reach the top of the league's dunking leaderboard. Of Dwight's 67 made field goals this year, 33 have been dunks. Wow.
• Bob Vander Weide is officially in charge of the Magic. He takes over for Rich DeVos.

The Magic's Jameer Nelson drives to the basket against the Cavaliers' Zydrunas Ilgauskas in Orlando's 117-116 victory against Cleveland
Photo by David Liam Kyle, NBAE/Getty Images

Holy freaking crap. I am going to have a heart attack if the Magic keep blowing late leads. Nevertheless, we pulled out a tight victory in overtime, with Dwight Howard nailing two clutch free throws -- yes, you read that correctly -- to win the game. Here's the boxscore.

We held a four-point lead with 20 seconds to play, then watched as LeBron James, a 63% foul shooter, hit three free throws to send the game into overtime.

I'll cut to the chase: the teams played evenly throughout overtime before Howard's free throw heroics with 5 seconds to play. On Cleveland's ensuing possession, LeBron James drove the lane, only to get tied up by Hedo Turkoglu at the buzzer, forcing a jump-ball with seven-tenths of a second remaining on the game clock. James' errant tip went out of bounds, and the Magic left The Q victorious.

Here's the tricky part: replays showed that there might have been some extracurricular activity between Turk and James on the final play. Not only did Turk reach across James' arms to force the jump-ball, but he also appeared to put his knee into James' back, causing The King to fall over. But the officials swallowed their whistles and "let the players play," to use a sports cliche. Stunned Cavaliers fans booed and jeered loudly as the teams walked off the court, with the courtside microphones picking up shouts of "You suck!" and "That was terrible!" among less printable taunts.

What a basketball game, though. It featured 19 lead changes and 11 ties. Even if we had lost, we shouldn't have gotten down on ourselves; either way, we took the defending Eastern Conference champions down to the wire on their home floor. The fact that we ended up winning -- albeit controversially -- is just icing on the cake.

I'm emotionally drained and in need of a shower, so I'll make the rest of this post brief:

• The Cavaliers are an incredible defensive team. Late in the game, the Magic couldn't seem to get anything going. No matter where the ball was, the Cavaliers defense was there to stop it. Our only hope was that they'd hack Dwight, and that Dwight would hit his free throws. We got lucky.
• Trailing by two points with two minutes to play in overtime, the Magic ran a play for... Keith Bogans?!?! He came off a screen, caught the ball just to the right of the three-point line, and drilled a jumper to give the Magic the lead. KEITH BOGANS?!?!
• LeBron James had a triple-double with 39 points, 13 boards, and 14 assists. I want to know: have the Magic ever won an overtime game in which an opponent posted a triple-double?
• I'd like to thank Mike Brown for letting Sasha Pavlovic shoot threes late in the game. Was he unaware that Daniel Gibson, whom I said could be a Magic-killer, was 5-of-5 in the game, including 4-of-4 on three-pointers? Thank you, Mike!
• Jameer Nelson: 21 points, 11 assists, 1 turnover. He has two double-doubles already this year, which is two more than he had last year. I feel silly for ever questioning him.
• If these two teams meet in the Playoffs, it's going to be fun to watch.
  • Cavaliers. Fun to watch. I can't believe I just said that.
• Hedo Turkoglu has officially come back down to Earth. After punishing teams in earlier games with hot shooting, Turk has cooled off considerably. He scored 13 points tonight, but needed 15 shots to do it. And last night, he turned the ball over 8 times. Wake up, Hedo! You're killing me!
• It wasn't just the two free throws late that Dwight hit; he was 13-of-16 on the night. Can he make these high-percentage free-throw nights more frequent? One can hope.
• Before I forget: 35 points and 16 rebounds for D-12 tonight. Explain to me how one can rationalize voting in Shaquille O'Neal over him to the All-Star game.

The Magic get a day off tomorrow before facing Richard Jefferson (?!) and his Nets in New Jersey on Friday.

	vs.
4-4		6-2
Quicken Loans Arena
7:00 PM
Sun Sports
Probable starters:
Daniel Gibson	PG	Jameer Nelson
Larry Hughes	SG	Keith Bogans
LeBron James	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Drew Gooden	PF	Rashard Lewis
Zydrunas Ilgauskas	C	Dwight Howard

25 words or fewer: The Magic face the Cavaliers in an early-season matchup of Eastern Conference contenders.

Know your enemy: The Cavs may only be at .500, but their losses have come against some of the West's best teams: Dallas, Phoenix, Utah, and Denver. Then again, their wins have come against New York, Golden State, Sacramento, and the L.A. Clippers, so it's hard to tell if they're really that good.

Useless information: Drew Gooden doesn't have that thing on the back of his head anymore.

Bullet points:

• Sun Sports! Huzzah!
• Tonight marks the beginning of a week's worth of games against likely playoff teams. The Magic make a stop in New Jersey to face the Nets on Friday night, fly home to play the Celtics on Sunday, then face New Orleans and San Antonio on the road. The next easily winnable game for us is next Friday against the Bobcats.
• J.J. Redick won't be available tonight, not that we'd use him. With each day that passes, he reminds me more and more of Brooks Thompson.
• The Magic have fared well against the Cavaliers recently, beating them twice in the preseason without Rashard Lewis and taking two out of the teams' three meetings last year. The one loss came in a game at Cleveland last December 23rd, when LeBron James outscored the Magic by himself in the fourth quarter. Somehow, this fact does not surprise me.
• If the Magic are to win this game, they're going to have to do it on the boards. Cleveland is a poor offensive team, but they get plenty of second-chance points because Ilgauskas and Gooden are such good offensive rebounders. Dwight Howard is going to need some help on the glass tonight.
• Is it just me, or does it seem like Cleveland's Daniel Gibson is the kind of player who can torch the Magic? He's like a younger, non-crappy Jannero Pargo because he's small, quick, and hits a ton of threes. If he goes nuts tonight... well, look out. There's always that old refrain: At least I have him on one of my fantasy teams.
• Maybe Dwight will make good on his promise to dunk on James, which he failed to do during the 2007 China Games.