FROM COURTSIDE 3

The Magic lost to the Cavs in o.t. last night 108-100, in what this writer thinks may turn out to be their best game of the season so far.How can a loss be that good? Here is what I saw from "courtside" last night. Both teams played reasonably well in the first quarter,which ended with the Cavs up by a couple of points in what has become a typical low scoring quarter. Both teams played pretty much the same way in the second period, except our guys became sloppy and commited something like 11 turnovers. At about the five minute mark I remember thinking that it would be a very long night and we would be lucky to score 35 points by halftime. When the "dust" cleared at halftime, we were down by seventeen points and our chances of winning this game were somewhere between slim and forget about it. So what did we do differently in the second half to overcome this deficit and actually take a 3 point lead with only seconds left in the game? We started running more which opened up our "princeton" style offense and enabled us to get back into this game! An additional benefit was what appeared to be the metamorphisis of Dwight Howard. I have never seen Dwight play a better game of basketball than he did in the second half last night. It's not that he scored 21 points, it's the way he scored them! Sure,he had his usual couple of power dunks, but he also scored with short range jumpers, baby hooks, both left and right handed, and some very nifty off the glass moves to the basket. The close to sell out crowed really enjoyed and got into this team as soon as the tempo picked up. It reminded me of the way it felt to be there before we brought the Christies to town last season. In any case, even though I felt Stevies' final shot in regulation time was ill advised, and the Cavs regained the momentum in o.t.,this loss could become a watershed type situation if we learn something from it. I, like you, hate loosing, but saw enough good things happen in the second half to remain optomistic.