Offensive rebounds. That is what killed us. The Hornets got 19 more chances from offensive rebounds than the Magic did, beating us 21-2 in that category!
The game started off a little slow for the Magic, yet we picked it up and played good ball in the first quarter. Dwight missed an alley-oop dunk, Arroyo drew 2 offensive fouls on Chris Paul, and even Pat Garrity checked in at 4:37 in the first quarter, for Turk. Arroyo drawing the two fouls sent Paul to the bench, bringing in Magic Killer Jannero Pargo, which was not a good sight to see for Magic fans. Good thing his shot was not falling much tonight. Oh wait we still lost. But, at the end of the first we led 27-21.
In the second, Dooling had a huge block on Jannero Pargo, who was running down the court for a layup on a fast break. And Dooling hit a huge jumper at the other end of the court, right after. Bogans nailed some big threes, ending up going 3-8 in the game from beyond the three point line. We led by 11 before the half, but the Hornets cut the lead down to single digits. The Magic still led 53-44 at halftime. After two, Dwight had 10/5, Hedo had 13/5/5, and Rashard had 3 three-pointers for 13 points.
Rashard Lewis picked up his third personal foul very early in the third quarter, meaning Garrity got more time on the court. Garrity continued to do nothing, throwing a post pass over Dwight's head and out of bounds. Morris Peterson, who scored in single digits in the Hornets past 10 games, lit it up tonight. He scored 19 points, going 5-6 from distance and kept the Hornets in the game during the 2nd and 3rd quarters. Hedo hit a huge 3 and had 20 points already before the 5 minute mark in the 3rd. At this time the Hornets had out rebounded us 15-1 in the offensive rebound category. This Hornets team is normally just a middle of the pack offensive rebounding team. This horrible performance in that stat really exposes our glaring weakness and the need we have to address. But Turk brought some life back to this team when He hit a fade away, 24-second shot clock buzzer beater from just inside the three point line. New Orleans went on a 11-2 run in the end of the 3rd to cut the lead to 2 points and the quarter ended with a Magic lead 76-74.
The fourth was a nightmare for Magic fans. We saw Chris Paul get it going offensively. The score was tied at 90 and we needed a big shot but Turkoglu couldn't come up with it. The Hornets went ahead by two but the Magic got a big fastbreak tomahawk by Keyon, over Peja Stojakovic. Evans hit a huge three to put us up 95 to 92, then Hedo travelled killing momentum. Morris Peterson pushed off Evans to get an inbounds play and the ref, (standing mere feet from the play) calls a foul on Mo. Peja hit the free throw and hit a big three pointer, his first and only one of the night and bumped the Hornets to a 96-95 lead. We then fouled Peja and the Hornets lead went to 3. Less than 10 seconds left to go and the Magic need a big bucket. Hedo got an easy dunk and then we fouled Chris Paul and to our amazement the 85% free throw shooter missed both shots. We were only down by one point and Hedo inbounded the ball to Rashard who thought he would get fouled. He put the ball on the floor only to be trapped, then dished it to Keyon who didn't expect the ball and threw up a bad shot. That was the end of the game right there. Hedo should have gotten the ball, not Rashard, not Keyon, not Dwight. Hedo is our game winning man, who has won many close games for us this season. The game ended a Hornets win 98-97.
Dwight - 17/15 Hedo - 26/5/7/5 TO Rashard - 24/1/4
Notes:
- This was our 40th game this season with 10+ 3 point field goals made.
- Bob Vanderwiede (who turned 50 today) and the Magic organization raised $105,000 to donate to local Boys & Girls clubs, here in Central Florida.
- Our next game is Saturday on ESPN in Cleveland at 3PM. Then we fly to New York for a game on Sunday at 7 PM.
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