CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Rashard Lewis had tendinitis in his right knee. Hedo Turkoglu had a sprained left ankle. Jameer Nelson had missed the second half of the season with a severe shoulder injury. With three of the five starters out of the lineup, many wondered if the Magic stood a chance in the playoffs.
They needn’t have worried. While Nelson was unable to play, both Lewis and Turkoglu were back in action when the first round began on April 19. First up were the Philadelphia 76ers. The Magic had bested the Sixers in all three meetings that year. They hoped to sweep them in this series.
They didn’t. In Game 1, Philadelphia had the edge throughout most of the first half. Orlando took control in the third quarter, going up by as many as 17 points. Many of those points came from Dwight Howard, who recorded a career playoff high of 31, plus 16 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks—despite being sidelined for several minutes after being scratched across his eyes by a defender.
But the Sixers rallied early in the fourth. The Magic seemed powerless to stop the onslaught; at the thirty-four-second mark, the score was tied at 98 each.
It stayed that way for the next twenty-two seconds. Then, with just two seconds showing on the clock, Sixer Andre Iguodala sank one from eighteen feet out. Turkoglu tried to get the Magic up and over with a buzzer-beating three-pointer, but the shot missed. Final score: Philadelphia 100, Orlando 98.
To lose after being ahead by such a great margin was a crushing blow to Dwight Howard. Fortunately, he got a big morale boost two nights later, when the NBA announced that he had been voted the Defensive Player of the Year. He was the youngest player in league history to win the award, and only the fifth player to win it for both his rebounding (13.8 per game) and his blocked shots (2.9 per game).
He was all smiles when he accepted the bronze trophy. He noted afterward that he had set a goal before the season to become a better defensive player so that he could help his teammates out. He also added that he believed they had a chance to win the championship.
The Magic got closer to that chance when they beat the Sixers 96–87 the next night—although they nearly gave up the game again when they let an 18-point lead slip through their fingers.
“Man, I hope these boys don’t come back again,” Howard commented afterward.
Philadelphia did come back, however, despite a monstrous performance by Dwight, who earned a new career playoff high of 36 points plus 11 rebounds. It was all for nothing: The Sixers snatched Game 3 away from Orlando in the final seconds with a score of 96–94.
It was a tie game in the last moments of the next meeting, too. But this time the Magic got the upper hand thanks to an outstanding shot from Turkoglu at the one-second mark. Final score: Orlando 84, Philadelphia 81.
The teams were now even at two games apiece. Dwight Howard made sure the Magic went ahead in the series by delivering a personal best performance of 24 playoff rebounds, as well as 24 points, in the 91–78 Game 5 victory.
He also delivered something else that game: a sharp elbow to Sixer Samuel Dalembert’s head. While play often gets physical in the paint, purposefully injuring an opponent is grounds for suspension.
Howard defended himself by saying he had no intention of hurting anyone but was simply playing aggressively. And in fact, he injured one of his own teammates, Courtney Lee, later in the game when his elbow hit Lee’s head during a block.
Unfortunately, when officials reviewed the replays of Howard’s elbow swing, they decided that Howard had struck him on purpose. He was suspended from playing in Game 6; the Magic would have to play without their star, as well as Lee, who needed surgery.
As it turned out, that game was the highest scoring for Orlando yet. They won easily, 114–89, to advance to the second round. There, they would meet the defending NBA champions, the Boston Celtics.