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By John Denton
Feb. 2, 2016
OKLAHOMA CITY – Rare is it the case that a team suffers an absolute gut-punch of a loss and remembers the game with great reverence. But that’s the case with the Orlando Magic’s players when they think back to Oct. 30.
That night, when the Magic repeatedly pushed the star-studded Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink, will go down as one of the wildest, most action-packed games in franchise history – even though it ended up with Orlando on the wrong side of a pulsating 139-136 double-overtime result.
How crazy was it? It was one of those lead-``SportsCenter’’-type-of-games. It was one of those talk-of-the-water-cooler type of nights that featured almost everything – stellar individual performances from superstar players, clutch buzzer-beaters from both teams, wild swings in emotion and the score and back-and-forth action that left the players and the Amway Center sellout crowd of 18,846 both breathless and exhausted.
``Definitely, a great game that was really exciting with a lot of big shots made,’’ recalled Orlando’s Victor Oladipo, who had a go-ahead 3-pointer near the end of regulation, a contested 3 at the end of the first extra period to force a second OT and a triple-double performance. ``Their all-stars obviously came to play, but I remember us playing well as a unit.’’
The Magic (21-26) showed tremendous resiliency bouncing back from that crushing loss to OKC (37-13), and they’ll have to do the same on Wednesday night when the two teams play again at Energy Solutions Arena. Orlando led San Antonio four times in the third quarter on Monday night, only to fall in the fourth in frustrating fashion. Now, they have to face superstars Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Thunder on Wednesday in Oklahoma City.
``We definitely can compete with them and we can definitely win this game,’’ said Magic forward Aaron Gordon, one of the players who will be tasked with trying to check Durant. ``We need to do what we do and that’s communicate with each other and trust each other. As long as we do that, we can be a phenomenal team and I believe that.’’
The 275 combined points scored by the Magic and Thunder on Oct. 30 were the most in Magic history, topping the 271 scored in the Dec. 30, 1990 defeat of Denver (155-116). That was the game that Scott Skiles set the NBA record for assists in a game with 30 – a mark that still stands today after 25 years. Coincidentally, Skiles has been involved in the two highest-scoring games in Magic history.
Skiles has worked to teach the Magic that it’s not enough to simply play well against elite teams and not win. That was the case in the second game of the season against OKC, and it was the case again on Monday when Orlando came within 12 minutes of being the first NBA team to win in San Antonio in 26 tries. The Magic showed plenty of fight all night against the Spurs, but the squad took little solace from a game where they simply couldn’t get enough defensive stops in the fourth quarter to win the game.
``It would have a moral victory if we had won and really thought we were going to,’’ said Gordon, who set a career high for rebounds (14 on Sunday and 16 on Monday) for a second consecutive night. ``But the ball just didn’t bounce our way.’’
It bounced the Magic’s way quite a bit back on Dec. 30 when they threatened to run away from the Thunder in the second half. Orlando frustrated Westbrook much of the first half, kept Durant in check for the most part, got big nights from Tobias Harris (30 points) and Nikola Vucevic (26 points) in blowing out to a somewhat shocking 18-point lead.
Not surprisingly, OKC made a run right back at the Magic behind the superstar play of Westbrook and Durant. The Thunder outscored the Magic 42-34 in the fourth as Westbrook (48 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists) and Durant (43 points) combined for a staggering 91 points, 23 rebounds and 10 assists.
Oladipo seemed to have rescue the Magic in the final seconds of regulation when he drilled a step-back 3-pointer over Westbrook with 4.1 seconds remaining to put Orlando up two.
The Magic appeared to think that OKC would call a timeout and briefly let their guard down as Westbrook pushed the ball back up the court. From just inside the half-court line – and coincidentally from the basketball of the Magic logo – the all-star guard let fly a 40-foot jumper that banked in off the glass, tied the game and stunned the home crowd.
``It was a great game for sure, but a tough game too,’’ Vucevic said. ``There was a lot of big plays and I thought we played them pretty well in that game. They’re obviously playing a lot better now and with them being at home it’s going to be a tough game for us again. So we have to be ready to play our best.’’
Oladipo was the best he’s been all season on that night against OKC in October. He made just eight of 27 shots and three of 10 3-pointers that night, but he drills shots in the clutch when the Magic needed them the most. He finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists, three steals and a blocked shot for the second triple-double of his career.
On Wednesday, Oladipo said the game will come down to more about Orlando defense against Westbrook (a seventh triple-double for the season on Monday against Washington) and Durant (28.5 ppg. in January to become the Western Conference Player of the Month).
``We’re definitely going to need to do a better job defensively than we did in that last game,’’ Oladipo said. ``Everybody is going to have to be ready to play.’’