The Magic's Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, and Dwight Howard cheer on their teammates during garbage time of Orlando's 122-92 victory over Washington on Wednesday night.
Photo by Ned Dishman, NBAE/Getty Images
J.J. Redick, Pat Garrity, and Marcin Gortat combined for 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 19 minutes. Jameer Nelson had 9 points and 10 assists in only 21 minutes. Maurice Evans, Keith Bogans, and Rashard Lewis each converted open-court steals into wide-open dunks. Dwight Howard finished with an eerily quiet line of 20 points and 11 boards. Those numbers are below his season averages, but there are 29 other teams in this league who would love to be able to say 20-and-11 is a disappointing line from their center.
Yup, sure sounds like we won by 30. And, lo and behold, we did. Washington came out flat and seemed disinterested. Perhaps the wide-open layups they missed in the first half crushed their spirit. Whatever the case, they didn't put up much of a fight. On two occasions in the third quarter, the Wizards had plenty of time to set their defense, but DeShawn Stevenson lost track of Evans; and on those two occasions, Evans got an uncontested power flush off a Jameer Nelson assist.
I have a plane to catch -- need to get those sharp objects away from the Bullets Forever guys! -- so I'm cutting this recap short. Some final notes, though: the victory tonight is our 40th on the season, which ties our total from all of last season. It also gave us 22 road victories on the season, just one shy of the franchise record.
Looking good for us, guys. Looking very good.