Raptors worked hard but Dwight Howard worked harder

The game came down to a Raptors stop as the Magic with 30 seconds left in the game ran the clock down and Quentin Richardson sent the ball out to J.J. Redick who hit a three with 9.8 seconds left and ballooned the Magic two point lead to a five point 90-85 lead that the Raps could not comeback from as they lost 92-88.

It was the Dwight Howard show for the Magic as he put up 36 points and 13 boards in the game but after the Raptors allowed him 7 boards in the first quarter they then held him to three in total during the second and third quarters until he got three more in the fourth. He was scoring in all quarters starting with 10 to open the game in the first and then he put up his fewest points in the second with 6 and then his most in the third with 13 and finished the game with 7 in the final quarter. He got help from Ryan Anderson who had 7 of his 19 points and more importantly 11 of his 13 boards in the first half as the Raptors stood tall on the boards with Magic getting a single rebound more then the Raps. Anderson got 6 points in both the third and fourth while J.J. Redick had 5 of his 13 points in the 10 seconds as he scored the Magics last 5 points but Hedo Turkoglu was 0 for 6 from the floor and had 1 board to go with his no points and finished the game with 9 of the Magics 25 as they had three more then the Raptors.

DeRozan lead the Raps again with 23 points with 14 in the first half and finished with a 9 of 22 night with 4 of 4 from the line while Bayless lead the charge in the fourth quarter with 12 of his 15 points in the quarter while Calderon had 6 of his 8 points in the quarter. James Johnson had a solid game with 13 points, 7 boards, and 7 assists (Calderon had 7 as well) while on the boards Arron Gray had 11 and Ed Davis who started for an injured Amar Johnson had 7 to go with 6 points and Bayless had 6 boards to go with his 5 assists. Jaamaal Magliore had 5 boards but more importantly made it hard for Howard to get boards in his 15 minutes on the court.

The Raps had a team effort all game and was never out of it til the end but took jumpers in the final quarter instead of going into the paint

Tom Mehegan