Orlando won at the Amway Center for the first time since defeating the Philadelphia 76ers on Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving. They had dropped five straight at home, including the first three of this home stand to Utah, Sacramento and New York.
``It’s good to get a win at home for once,’’ Afflalo said with a sigh. ``I don’t think we won here this month. It was pretty impressively defensively with the way our bigs fought their bigs all night. And we shared the ball and made the right play. When we play like that I think we’re pretty good.’’
As well as the Magic played offensively, they were nearly as good defensively. They held mercurial forward Josh Smith to two of 13 shooting and five points. Monroe wasn’t much better with just six points on three of nine shooting.
Detroit (14-17) shot just 41.1 percent for the game. The Pistons came into Friday having won eight road games and three in a row. One of those road wins was in Indiana for the Pacers’ lone home loss of the season.
The Magic hadn’t played since Monday when they fell behind early and nearly wiped out a 25-point deficit in a narrow defeat to the New York Knicks. Vaughn gave his team Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off before returning to the practice court on Thursday. The team responded well to the time off, running the offense crisply and knocking down several open shots.
Said Vucevic, referring to the Magic getting a bounce from Thursday’s rugged practice: ``Guys were not happy with the way that we had lost three games at home. It showed a little bit in practice where we at each other and tried to get better. That’s how you are going to get better and it carried over to (Friday). Guys wanted to play that way – hard and physical – to get a win.’’
Follow John Denton on Twitter here