Getting stops continued to be a major problem for the Magic, and Sunday night might have been a low point considering how Denver big men JaVale McGee and Kenneth Faried repeatedly dunked the ball in the second half at the Pepsi Center.
Injuries to Howard, Turkoglu and Nelson and a difficult back-to-back finally caught up to the Magic Sunday night as a game that was tied at the half devolved into an unsightly 101-74 Orlando loss to the playoff-bound Nuggets.
``I don’t think it had anything to do with running out of gas,’’ an angry Stan Van Gundy said. ``Four times (McGee) is going to start up for a pick and back-cut for a lob, that’s absurd. We ran out of focus and competitiveness, that’s what we ran out of.’’
For a seventh time in the past 11 games, the Magic (36-28) allowed at least 100 points. Also, an opponent shot 50 percent or better from the floor for a seventh time in the past eight games.
Denver made a whopping 56.4 percent of its shots on Sunday. Many of those Denver baskets came at point-blank range as McGee had eight dunks, while Faried had two more. Denver, which is 16-2 this season against teams from the Eastern Conference, had 64 points in the paint a night after Utah battered Orlando for 62 paint points – the two highest totals of the season against the Magic.
There’s no Howard, who is out the rest of the season after having back surgery. Turkoglu, who had surgery to repair three fractured bones in his face, likely won’t be back any sooner than the start of the playoffs next Saturday. And to make matters worse, the Magic lost Nelson on Sunday night to a badly bruised right calf muscle two minutes into the game.
Forced to play some 18 hours after losing 117-107 in overtime in Utah on Saturday, the Magic totally fell flat in the second half. With the game tied at 44 at the half, Denver outscored Orlando 29-18 in the third period and 28-12 in the fourth quarter.
``We didn’t do our defensive assignments, we didn’t have energy and didn’t do anything with how we’ve been playing the last five or six games,’’ said Magic shooting guard Jason Richardson, who made only four of 13 shots and scored just nine points. ``You can blame it on whatever it was, but we just don’t play like we should have.’’
The Magic, losers of five of the last seven games, missed out on a chance to clinch the No. 6 seed earlier in the day when the New York Knicks (34-20) rallied to beat the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday afternoon. Orlando’s magic number remains at one and the hope is that it can lock up the No. 6 seed Wednesday night at home against hapless Charlotte. The Bobcats lost their 20th straight game on Sunday.
``Up until (Sunday’s) game our effort has been great,’’ Richardson said. ``We’ve been moving the ball well, but we have to do some things better defensively. You want the result to be a win in your column, but we had been playing well before this. We’ve got two games left to try and get two wins before we head into the playoffs.’’
Here is a look at some of the key moments from Sunday night’s game at the Pepsi Center in Denver:
MAGICAL MOMENTS
MAGIC MYSTERY
MAGIC MOVES
John Denton writes for OrlandoMagic.com. John has covered the Magic since 1997 and recently authored ``All You Can Be’’ with Magic center Dwight Howard. E-mail John at jd41898@aol.com
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