Ordinarily, I'd put something like this announcement in today's news post and just be done with it. But this one deserves its own thread:

Hedo Turkoglu has made Orlando Magic history.

The NBA named Turkoglu the Eastern Conference Player of the Week. From the press release:

Turkoglu, who earned his second consecutive Player of the Week honor, guided Orlando to a 3-0 week, posting averages of 24.3 points, 8.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists. Turkoglu recorded a season-high-tying eight assists on Feb. 2 in a 121-115 win at Indiana and led or tied in assists in all three of Orlando’s games last week. The Magic sit atop the Southeast Division with a 31-18 record.

John Denton notes it's the first time in Magic franchise history that one of its players has earned Player of the Week honors in two consecutive weeks. Shaquille O'Neal never did it. Penny Hardaway never did it. Tracy McGrady never did it. Nope. It's Hedo.

Does anyone want to argue he doesn't deserve a spot on the All-Star team now? There's a chance he'll still make it, though. Starting forward Kevin Garnett, the leading vote-getter in fan balloting, has missed over a week with a strained abdominal muscle. He may not be able to play in the game, in which case David Stern will select an injury replacement. Turk has as good a shot as anyone at taking that spot, if Ticket indeed chooses to sit-out the All-Star game.

Let us commemorate this momentous achievement by honoring Hedo... with YouTube Videos. Call it Hedo Turkoglu's Greatest Hits.

My favorite is his game-winner against Boston. What a game that was:

There's also this pretty sweet alley-oop to Dwight Howard from a visit to New York earlier this season. How did he even see him? Wow.

There are more, but I don't want to break your scroll-wheel by embedding too many movies. Here are others for your consideration:

• Game-winning, turnaround jumper against Seattle, 2006/2007.
• Alley-oop to Dwight Howard to beat the Spurs, 2006/2007 season.
• Game-winning jumper against Chicago, 2007/2008 season.

Post your favorite Hedo memories in the comments.

As promised, here's my recap. I had too many things to do yesterday after the game to write it yesterday.

What a game. I guess it's not a Magic win unless it involves coughing-up a double-digit lead, but obviously, we're happy with the result.

Kelly Dwyer writes the following in his Behind the Boxscore post today: "I mean, at home, and with Kevin Garnett on the bench, the Magic should be beating the Celtics. And probably by more than three points."  That's true. The win certainly could have been -- and should have been -- more decisive. But between Rajon Rondo's suffocating defense and the team's inexplicable reluctance to throw the ball to Dwight Howard late in the game, it's remarkable we even won at all.

Celtics fans, as you can see in the comments section of this post on CelticsBlog, took issue with the officiating yesterday. From my vantage point in the upper bowl, the game was called fairly on both sides. I respect that what was a foul on one end was also a foul on the other end, I respect that Paul Pierce and Hedo Turkoglu were allowed to defend each other physically and without penalty, and I respect that no ticky-tack fouls were called down the stretch.

What Boston's defeat really comes down to is the Celtics having plenty of chances -- the Magic turned the ball over 20 times for 22 31 Celtic points -- and still not being able to win. Furthermore, the Celtics had a 13-8 rebounding advantage after the first period, but ended the game with a five-rebound deficit. The Celtics, even without Kevin Garnett, should have been able to rebound better than they did, so they can also point to that as a reason they lost.

Even if we had lost this game, I would have been pleased with the individual efforts.

• Rashard Lewis was invisible offensively, but worked harder for rebounds than I ever recall him doing.
• Keith Bogans might have been the goat had we lost, as he left Ray Allen wide-open in the left corner when Allen made his game-tying trey, but he also played hard; I counted three loose balls he chased down for us.
• Brian Cook and Maurice Evans combined for 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting, including 4-of-6 on three-pointers, making the Ariza trade look pretty good.
• And Dwight Howard didn't score too much -- 18 points is below his season average -- but he made up for it with five highlight-reel blocked shots. The Magic are 21-2 this season when Dwight has 3 swats or more, and it's probably not a coincidence.

Perhaps the most telling example of how focus and team-wide effort played a role in our victory was our free-throw shooting: 19-of-20, or 95%. Outstanding.

Some final notes on the Celtics:

• Celtics fans do not appreciate Hedo Turkoglu.
  • Shamrock Headband called his game-winner "fairly preposterous."
  • Red's Army "hates it" when the Celtics lose because of "the BS 'wait until no time is left, take a crappy shot' play."
  • For what it's worth, the shot looked good all the way, and was nothing-but-net. Pierce defended Turkoglu well and forced him to take a difficult shot, but it wasn't a bad shot.
• Matt from Hardwood Paroxysm doesn't appreciate Celtics fans' disrespect of Turk, and wrote them a brief letter.  Here's an excerpt:

  Dear Boston fans,
  We're sincerely happy that you've turned around your team [....] But seriously. Enough is enough. If it was Paul Pierce/Ray Allen/Rajon Rondo that hit that three pointer yesterday fading away with a Magic player in his face, there'd be nothing but "What a magical player!" and "What a great shot by a great Celtics!" and "I wish Ray Allen would defecate on me!". But because it was the other guy, it was "lucky"? Come, now. You're better than that.

  Matt also emailed me during yesterday's game to inform me about how pro-Celtics the ABC announcing crew of Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown was. Apparently, after a Pierce layup over Howard, Hubie exclaimed, "In your face!" Anyone else care to weigh in on the announcing yesterday?

• Teams like Phoenix and Golden State go into a special gear on offense sometimes, when it seems like they just cannot miss a shot. Boston is the only team in the league, at least that I've seen, that can go into that special gear on the defensive end. When the Celtics were in a full- or half-court press, we had a difficult time just getting a shot off. Frequently, Keyon Dooling or Hedo Turkoglu would be double-teamed with the ball 35 feet away from the basket with just 8 seconds left on the shot clock. Yeah, good luck with that.
• If I'm building a team from scratch, I really want Rajon Rondo on it. It's not just that he came up with 6 steals and played great defense; it's that he did it with effort and skill, not with dirty play. He's also freakishly athletic; one of Dwight's credited field-goals was actually a shot the 6'1" Rondo rejected at its apex, resulting in a goaltend. It was unbelievable, and if he had swatted it cleanly, the highlight would have been on ESPN forever.
• Perhaps the Celtics would have rebounded better if Doc Rivers opted to play Glen Davis, the 6'8", 300-pound rookie forward. Although he would've had trouble guarding Rashard Lewis, he also would have made a big difference on the glass. He's 5th among rookies and 60th overall in rebounding rate (14.2) and would have punished the Magic with put-backs on Boston misses. His DNP-CD, coupled with Brian Scalabrine's astonishing ineffectiveness (22 minutes, 1 point, 1 rebound), must have been vexing for Celtics fans.

The Magic went 3-1 last week and are 5-2 since that disastrous West-coast road trip ended. It's important for us to realize, though, that we just as easily could have been 1-3 last week, and that this team still has not turned the corner. However, it is encouraging that, as Stan Van Gundy pointed out in his post-game news conference, the team only played one quarter of bad basketball this week. It makes me wonder how good we'll be if Rashard Lewis ever awakens offensively.

Hedo Turkoglu wins the game for the Orlando Magic with this three-pointer in at the final buzzer. The shot defeated the Boston Celtics to send their record to 34-8.
Photo by Fernando Medina, NBAE/Getty Images

Inarguably the best game I've had the privilege of attending in person. Wow. I'll have a complete recap up later tonight Monday (mybad), so until then, enjoy the photo above and the boxscore. The only thing that would have made this win better would have been if Kevin Garnett played for Boston. That way, the Celtics wouldn't have any excuses behind which to hide.

Wow.

EDIT: The recap is now up in this post.

	vs.
27-18		34-7
Amway Arena
1:00 PM
ABC
Probable starters:
Carlos Arroyo	PG	Rajon Rondo
Maurice Evans	SG	Ray Allen
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Paul Pierce
Rashard Lewis	PF	Kevin Garnett
Dwight Howard	C	Kendrick Perkins

Boston is fresh off a one-point victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which Kevin Garnett celebrated by popping his jersey. Not many people appreciated the gesture, considering the Celtics should have beaten the Timberwolves by about 78 points based on the talent disparity. But whatever. Ticket was excited to beat his former team.

The Celtics have the league's best record, but they certainly aren't invincible. The Timberwolves actually lead down the stretch in that last game, but fumbled it away in the final minute; the Wizards beat them twice in one weekend; the Bobcats beat them once and were one errant inbounds pass from doing it another time; and we handed them their first loss of the season on this very floor. We can take 'em, but not if we play the same crappy defense that allowed the Pistons to hang 39 first-quarter points on us last time out.  

If you're interested, there is a bevy of Celtics blogs on the series of tubes. My personal favorites are Green Bandwagon and CelticsBlog.

Ignore what your ticket says the game time is, fans: ABC picked this game up a few weeks ago and tipoff has been moved up from 7 PM to 1 PM. Go Magic.

Slow news day. Goodness.

• UPDATE: Earlier, I somehow forgot to link this rather lengthy Hardwood Paroxysm post, which suggests ways to improve the other stuff that happens at NBA games. Bravo, gents. Magic fans who are similarly annoyed with the entertainment at Amway Arena should definitely read this post. It's pretty ridiculous that the "other stuff" -- Stuff the Mascot, the Magic dancers, the JetBlue Crew, etc. -- is collectively called "Magic Live" and billed as an "in-arena entertainment experience." Note to whoever is responsible for coming up with this stuff: the GAME ITSELF is the "in-arena entertainment experience." Good grief.
• In non-basketball news, Dwight Howard is the father of a baby boy who was born on November 18th. The Orlando Sentinel reports the mother is Royce Reed, who was an Orlando Magic Dancer during the 2005/2006 season. Oddly enough, she spent last year as a Miami Heat dancer. She now joins Rony Seikaly, Shaquille O'Neal, and Michael Doleac as people who have worked for both Florida-based NBA teams. Congratulations, Dwight. Just stay away from Jason Maxiell for a while.
  • UPDATE #2: For those of you who are interested in photos of Royce Reed, you can scroll through this picture gallery at the Magic's official website.
• Also from the Sentinel: ABC has picked up the Magic/Celtics game on January 27th. Tipoff has been moved up to 1 PM. It's been five or six years since I've been to a nationally televised, non-playoff Magic game, so that should be exciting.
• Bullets Forever makes the case that Brendan Haywood is the second-best center in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, I don't think the coaches will vote him onto the team; Chris Bosh, although listed as a forward on the NBA's official ballot, is more likely to be designated a center for backup purposes.

Is it 9:00 yet?