The Charlotte Bobcats can only watch as the Magic's Hedo Turkoglu drives in for a dunk in Orlando's 103-87 victory on Friday night.
Photo by Kent Smith, NBAE/Getty Images
The Orlando Magic snapped a three-game losing streak by beating the Charlotte Bobcats on Friday night 103-87. Here's the boxscore. UPDATE: And here are Henry Abbott's observations for ESPN.com's TrueHoop blog. Abbott sat courtside.
We won the game thanks to strong second-half play. How strong? How does 75% shooting in the third quarter sound? I couldn't believe it either. But the offense just clicked. Charlotte was helpless to stop it.
I'd like to single out the great play of Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu tonight. Dwight Howard was his usual dominant self with 33 points and 18 rebounds, but it was Nelson and Turk who kept us in the game. Jameer didn't attempt a shot until there were 20 seconds left in the first half; he was content to merely set the table for his teammates. In the second half, he looked for his shot a little more, but it paid off. He made all 6 of his field goal attempts in route to scoring 13 points. More importantly, he didn't take a bad shot the whole night. He was content to take what Charlotte's defense would give him, and I admire that.
Turk was otherworldly. He ignited the Magic's third-quarter surge by hitting two threes, driving the lane for the dunk depicted in the photo that begins this post, and assisting on Jameer's lone three-pointer of the night. As great as he was, I still don't agree with Jemele Hill, who believes Turk is the Magic's MVP this season.
A great win for us, to be sure, but we can't rest easily. We have the Grizzlies tomorrow night, which has "letdown game" written all over it. They may not be very good, but mediocre teams are dangerous if you're coming off a big road win on national TV.