Reserve point guard Jordan Crawford had 18 of his 27 points in the first half to lead Washington’s comeback.
The Magic will be back in action again Saturday night, this time at the Amway Center against Toronto. The Raptors have already beaten the Magic twice this season in Toronto – 97-86 on Nov. 18 and 93-90 on Dec. 21.
The game is expected to feature the return of Magic small forward Hedo Turkoglu, who hasn’t played since the Nov. 2 season-opener when he broke a bone in his left hand. Turkoglu traveled with the team to Washington and worked out before Friday’s game without pain. He will go through another shooting session Saturday morning and he is expected to be cleared to play Saturday night against the Raptors.
``It means a lot to us (to get Turkoglu back),’’ Nelson said. ``He’s a guy who knows how to play the game and he plays it well. So he can add some things to our team because we’ve missed him.’’
Magic reserve point guard E’Twaun Moore suffered what looked to be at the time a serious injury to his left arm in the final seconds of the first quarter and did not return to the game. In the scrum for a loose ball, Washington’s Cartier Martin dived onto Moore’s arm and injured his elbow.
X-rays on Moore’s arm were negative, but he did not re-enter the game because of a sprained elbow. Moore will be re-evaluated in Orlando on Saturday. Possibly losing Moore for an extensive period of time would be painful to the Magic because of his shooting and his ability to play two positions.
``At first it really hurt with some sharp pains, but I guess I just sprained the elbow and hurt the ligaments, so it shouldn’t be too bad,’’ Moore said. ``It was very disappointing, especially being on the road and trying to get a win. I wanted to be there for my team and having to sit back there (in the locker room) and watch and see things I could have done, that made it tough.’’
The teams were meeting for the first time since last Wednesday when Washington’s Emeka Okafor fouled Davis across the arms to dislocate his shoulder late in the game. Davis, who is expected to miss a month, has not played since and the Magic have yet to win in four tries.
Despite leading by as much as 17 points in the first quarter, the Magic actually trailed 54-51 at the half because of poor shooting in the second period. The Magic made their first five 3-pointers of the night, but proceeded to miss the next seven over the rest of the first half.
Nelson picked up where he left off on Wednesday night in a 28-point effort against the New Orleans Hornets by scoring 14 points in the first 6 minutes of the game.
Nelson made his first five shots, with four of them coming on 3-pointers. Nelson’s torrid start allowed the Magic to race to a 25-8 lead midway through the first quarter. Vaughn rested Nelson at the 2-minute mark of the first quarter and the point guard never found his shooting rhythm the rest of the game.
``I got him out at 10 minutes knowing that I was going to have to play him a lot of minutes throughout the night,’’ Vaughn said. ``It was an opportunity for us to take advantage of the minutes because we had the lead. We gave (Nelson) a couple of heat checks to see if they were still going in. I think I took him out after the last miss. So I checked to see if I should play him the whole quarter.’’
But after a hot start, Orlando’s shooting cooled off and Washington’s reserves got the Wizards back into the game. Jordan Crawford scored 18 points off the bench in the first half alone, helping the Washington reserves outscore the Magic’s nonstarters 36-10 in the first half.
Now, the Magic will return to the Amway Center still winless since losing Davis and desperate to find some solution to what ails them now.
``We scored 97 points, which for us is enough,’’ Vaughn said. ``But giving up more than 100 points is a tough feat for us. Inside, we’ve got some work to do. We got dominated a little bit and that just puts more pressure on us to not give up transition points, and to contest every shot and get every loose ball. So there’s a lot of pressure on our defense, but we’ll figure it out.’’
Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Orlando Magic. All opinions expressed by John Denton are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Orlando Magic or their Basketball Operations staff, partners or sponsors. His sources are not known to the Magic and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an NBA accredited member of the media.
Follow John Denton on Twitter here