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The Orlando Magic improved to 3-5 with Friday's victory against the Detroit Pistons, erasing a 13-point deficit over the game's final 14 minutes to pick up their first road win of the season. Starting two-guard J.J. Redick scored 23 points, Arron Afflalo added 19, and Glen Davis posted 17 with 13 rebounds to lead the way for Orlando.
But how did the Magic topple a Pistons team that shot 53.7 percent from the field and had seven players score at least nine points?
| Team | Pace | Efficiency | eFG% | FT Rate | OReb% | TO Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magic | 95.1 | 115.6 | 53.4% | 16.9 | 36.8 | 15.8 |
| Pistons | 95.1 | 111.4 | 54.9% | 19.5 | 26.5 | 14.7 |
| Green denotes a stat better than the team's 2011/12 average; red denotes a stat worse than the team's 2011/12 average. | ||||||
Shooting and rebounding are the biggest reasons for Orlando's victory. While the chart above rightly indicates that Detroit had an advantage in terms of effective field-goal percentage, it doesn't explain the extent to which the Magic dominated from three-point range, which dominance keyed their victory. Orlando sank seven three-pointers in Friday's win, while the host Pistons mustered just two. In a four-point game, that 15-point advantage on threes proved decisive.
The Magic also controlled the boards, with a 44-30 advantage overall. Despite grabbing more than one-third of their missed shots, the Magic did not enjoy a huge advantage in second-chance points: Orlando had 16 such points on the night compared to 14 for the Pistons.
Davis and Nikola Vučević combined for 10 of the Magic's 14 offensive boards.
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