Raptors Burned By Sharp-Shooting Magic
Source: Jesse Campigotto, CBC News
Posted: 11/01/09 4:11PM
Filed Under: Main
Raptors fans who turned up at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday afternoon hoping to jeer Vince Carter for the first time in an Orlando uniform went home disappointed. Not so for the ex-Raptor's new team.
The Magic got a pleasant surprise as J.J. Reddick, starting at shooting guard in place of the injured Carter, scored a career-high 27 points to help sharp-shooting Orlando to a 125-116 victory.
Reddick, the 2006 U.S. college co-player of the year at Duke who has been mostly a disappointment as a pro, drained four of his five three-pointers in the first half to help Orlando jump out to a 22-point lead.
"J.J. came out on fire," Orlando centre Dwight Howard told CBC Sports.
The Raptors battled back in the second half, cutting their deficit to four on Andrea Bargnani's drive with 4:05 left in the game. But Orlando responded with a 6-0 run over the next 2:25 to pull away.
Reddick got plenty of help in the sniping department as the Magic connected on 17 of 32 shots from beyond the arc. Point guard Jameer Nelson, who finished with a team-high 30 points, and power forward Ryan Anderson (20 points) hit five triples apiece.
"Those [three-pointers] put us behind early and it was tough to fight back," Toronto coach Jay Triano said.
Howard added 24 points as he shot a sizzling 14-of-16 from the free-throw line. The star centre also collected 11 rebounds to help Orlando (3-0) stay unbeaten.
Heated Exchange
"I thought somebody grabbed me around my neck, and I just said that ain't called for when we're playing basketball," Howard said. "Somebody could get hurt.
"I just told [Bosh] that. We cleared it up and everything's cool."
Bosh scored a game-high 35 points for Toronto and grabbed 16 rebounds for his third double-double in as many games. He called the confrontation "good basketball."
"It's just a hard foul, there's no hard feelings or anything. I didn't want him to have a chance to make the basket, so I wrapped him up. I'm just trying to win basketball games, and if it takes a hard foul to do it, then so be it."
Bargnani scored 26 and Hedo Turkoglu the man Carter replaced in Orlando had 19, his most since signing with the Raptors over the summer.
"It was good to see them but I wanted a different way to send them home," said Turkoglu, who helped the Magic to the NBA finals last season.
The loss dropped Toronto (1-2) to 1-1 against last season's Eastern Conference finalists. The Raptors beat Cleveland at home in the season opener.
"It's a good lesson for us to learn," Turkoglu said. "We should have jumped on them early. We didn't want to be chasing [them] at home in front of our fans. We have to learn from these games, especially being a young team."
Pietrus sent home
Carter, who sprained his left ankle Friday in his second game since being traded to Orlando from New Jersey, had said he'd try to play against the Raptors. But the multitalented swingman decided against it after testing the ankle in the practice gym at the ACC before the game.
"He tried to go, he can go straight ahead," said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. "He said if he didn't have to play any defence, he would be fine. I've had some guys before who didn't play any defence. It's generally not something we encourage."
Orlando swingman Mickael Pietrus also missed the game because of flu-like symptoms and was sent home. Forward Rashard Lewis sat out the third of a 10-game suspension for testing positive for an elevated testosterone level in the off-season.
"As a team we knew, with the guys being out, that everybody had to step their level of play up," Howard said.
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