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Faster pace propels Magic to a 120-113 win over the Rockets
- Updated: January 15, 2015
If this Orlando Magic season will have a turning point, a soggy, cold night in Portland, Ore., may be remembered as that moment.
The intensity changed that night.
According to center Nikola Vucevic, it started with the Magic’s backcourt of the future, Elfrid Payton and Victor Oladipo, pushing the pace at every opportunity. Payton also inspired his teammates by guarding All-Star Damian Lillard tightly full court.
Suddenly, without warning, the Magic morphed into a running team, a team that inbounds the ball and speeds upcourt, and that change in style has paid huge dividends. After a win over the Chicago Bulls on Monday night, the Magic shocked the Houston Rockets 120-113 on Wednesday night behind big games from Oladipo, Payton, Vucevic and Channing Frye.
“Pace,” Oladipo said. “Changing the way we play. Realizing how we’re effective and what we have to do in order to win. We’ve just got to continue to keep doing it.
“Sometimes you just figure things out, and we figured it out. I credit the young fella. I don’t know about anybody else. I credit Elfrid Payton. He sets the tone. When he pitches the ball, when he gets us going — it’s him. He’s out there pressuring the ball, pushing the ball. It just makes me want to do it even more.”
The Magic look utterly transformed.
In their first 40 games of the season, including the game in Portland, they averaged 93.6 points per game.
In their last two games, both victories, they’ve scored 121 points and 120 points — the first time the team has scored at least 120 points in back-to-back games since Feb. 13-16, 1996.
“We talked about it throughout the whole year: that we want to play at a faster pace,” Vucevic said. “We weren’t doing it for some reason, and I think the guards just one game decided, Vic and Elfrid, to as soon as they get the ball just run. We just followed them, and everything kind of came into place.”
Against the Rockets, Oladipo scored a game-high 32 points and dished out six assists.
Vucevic contributed 25 points, 12 rebounds and generally sound defense against Dwight Howard.
Payton scored 12 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter.
“I just think it started with their point guard,” Howard said. “The guy with the crazy hair. He’s the one that started everything. He got into our guards on the defensive end. On the offensive end, he just pushed the pace and he made things happen.
Channing Frye helped, too, snapping out of his slump with 15 points.
The lanky power forward caught a pass from Oladipo and sank a crucial 3-pointer that put the Magic ahead 111-107 with 1:20 remaining.
After the Rockets scored after a timeout on a dunk by Donatas Motiejunas, the Magic countered.
Oladipo drove and dished to Vucevic, who scored as he was pushed by James Harden. Vucevic sank the free throw, extending the Magic’s lead to 114-109 with 47.3 seconds to go.
The exclamation point came a short while later.
With 39.9 seconds to go, Payton stole the ball from Harden and passed ahead to Oladipo, who sped down the court, elevated, turned 360 degrees in the air and dunked, sending the crowd inside Amway Center into a frenzy.
The Magic (15-27) snapped their four-game losing streak at Amway Center, while the Rockets (27-12) lost for the first time in five games.
The crowd booed Howard every time he touched the ball or stepped to the free-throw line.
Howard finished with 23 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
But Vucevic did a solid job of keeping Howard contained.
“He really took the challenge on,” Jacque Vaughn said of Vucevic. “I thought he was great in getting Dwight off his spot early on in the game.”
After the game, Vucevic deflected the attention from himself and credited the starting guards, Payton and Oladipo.
“I think this is something that we could look to being the start of something,” Payton said.
If that proves to be the case, people may remember a night in Portland as the turning point.
