CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Dwight Howard couldn’t wait to get back into the lineup for the first match against the Celtics. That game was similar to Game 1 of the Magic-Sixers series in that Orlando nearly blew a huge lead to lose. They were up by 28 points early in the third quarter and were still ahead by 16 when the fourth quarter began.
Then they fell apart. In five and a half minutes, they scored just 6 points while giving up 11. A pair of Celtics three-pointers with three minutes remaining narrowed the score to Orlando 89, Boston 83; another in the final seconds tightened it even more, to 93–90. But that three-pointer was the Celtics’ last basket of the game. Final score: Orlando 95, Boston 90.
There was no such collapse the next game, but only because the Magic failed to capture the lead even once. With their 112–94 victory, the Celtics tied the series at one apiece.
Dwight Howard went into Game 3 determined to get a win. He succeeded, delivering 17 points and 14 rebounds in the 117–96 victory. But it was as a shot blocker that he made the most impact. He walloped away four in the first quarter alone to force the Celtics into taking jump shots instead of layups or dunks. On his fifth swat, he jumped so high he had to brace himself with his left hand on the backboard before sending the ball careening into the stands.
“It starts with me,” the Defensive Player of the Year stated. “I have to do that every night if we want to be successful.”
Game 4 started off as a complete hack-fest for both sides. Twenty-nine fouls were called in the first half alone. The lead seesawed throughout, with neither team gaining a huge advantage. The match was decided with less than a second left on the clock—and by an unexpected player.
Celtic Glen Davis had come off the bench for an injured Kevin Garnett midway through the regular season. He’d played well in the series so far but hadn’t been a major player. That changed when he shot a twenty-one-foot jumper buzzer-beater to give Boston the 95–94 win.
Boston won the next game, too, once again coming back from a big deficit to leave the Magic in the dust. That made it twice in the series and five times in the postseason that Orlando had allowed a double-digit lead to slip through their fingers. Four of those games had ended in defeat. Something had to change for the Magic before it happened again.
Something did, although the way the change came about didn’t make everybody happy. After the Game 5 loss, a frustrated Dwight Howard criticized Stan Van Gundy’s coaching strategy, saying that the offense should be focused on getting the ball to him. He later apologized.
To his teammates and Orlando fans, he had a different message: “We can’t give up hope. We’re in this series to win it. We’re going to win this series.”
Those were bold statements, but they turned out to be true. Dwight dominated in Game 6, posting his fifth career postseason 20-20 game with 23 points and 22 rebounds in the Magic’s 83–75 win. He wasn’t as commanding in Game 7, yet he still added 12 points and 16 rebounds. He also showed everyone why he had won the Defensive Player of the Year award by swatting away five of Boston’s shots. Had he not done so, the final score of Magic 101, Celtics 82 might have looked a whole lot different.
“Wow, we just knocked off the defending champs on their home court,” Dwight wrote in his blog a few days later. “How about that?????”
With the Celtics put behind them, the Magic turned their attention to their next opponents. The Cleveland Cavaliers had been a powerhouse team ever since LeBron James joined their roster. James had scored no fewer than 25 points in the postseason so far and had recently tallied almost half of his team’s points in a win over the Atlanta Hawks. Behind his might, the Cavs had swept both squads they had faced in the playoffs. Now they looked to use the same broom on Orlando.
Cleveland fans couldn’t wait to watch their home team show Orlando the door. And in Game 1, it looked like they’d get what they came for. The Cavs took and held an early lead in the first quarter. All five of Cleveland’s starters added to the score, proving how well they worked together as a team.
On the Magic’s side, Dwight led the charge with five out of seven shots finding their mark for 10 points. The first of those was a dunk that was so powerful that it caused the shot clock on top of the backboard to fall over!
“I guess I don’t know my own strength sometimes,” Dwight chuckled after the game.
Unfortunately, not every Magic player was shooting as well. At the end of the first quarter, the score was Cleveland 33, Orlando 19.
In the second quarter, LeBron James got white-hot. He stuck shots from inside, outside, and the free-throw line. His teammates followed suit to give them another 30 points for their side. Orlando chalked up nearly as many, but that was nowhere near enough to overcome the first quarter deficit.
Stan Van Gundy tore into his players in the locker room during halftime. “You’re all witnesses!” Dwight recalled him saying about the way they were standing around while LeBron scored at will.
That simple statement put a fire in the Magic players’ bellies. They roared through the third quarter to come within four points. Then, in the opening minute of the fourth, they made seven unanswered points to take the lead!
But the game wasn’t over yet. The Cavs drew even. Then, at 5:07, Turkoglu stuck a three-pointer to put them ahead 93–90. LeBron drove in and dunked to tighten it to 93–92. The two players exchanged driving layups in the next two possessions to make it 95–94. Then Rashard Lewis hit a three-point jumper. So did Cav Mo Williams. For every shot the Magic took, the Cavs had an answer until, with forty seconds on the clock, Cleveland drilled in a go-ahead three-pointer! Cavs 103, Magic 102.
Orlando called a full timeout. When play resumed, Magic guard Rafer Alston got the ball to Lewis. Lewis shot from sixteen feet out and scored! But unbelievably, LeBron James scored, too, and he was fouled—by Dwight Howard! It was Howard’s sixth for the game, sending him to the bench to watch the conclusion from the sidelines. It was also a costly error that resulted in another point for the Cavs to give them a 106–104 lead.
There were still twenty-five seconds left in the game, however. That’s plenty of time for a team to set up a play and get off a final shot. That’s just what the Magic did. Turkoglu rifled the ball over to Lewis, who launched a three-pointer that kissed the glass and swished the net strings! Fourteen seconds later, the game ended with the final score of Magic 107, Cavs 106.
“Now will people believe we are here to play and here to win this thing?” Dwight asked.
Sadly, Orlando didn’t “win this thing” when the two teams next met. Instead, they found themselves on the wrong side of an amazing, buzzer-beating, game-winning three-pointer from the fingertips of LeBron James. “I’ve seen him do some crazy things,” Dwight blogged admiringly after the 96–95 loss, “but that was the sickest of them all!”
The Magic were down, but not beaten—not by a long shot. They hustled their way to a decisive 99–89 win in Game 3. Howard had 24 points for the night, 14 of which were free throws, a testament to how hard he’d been working on that particular shot.
Game 4 was an overtime nail-biter. The two teams were evenly matched throughout regulation play, but in the extra minutes, Dwight Howard took control. He slammed home back-to-back dunks, lofted in a layup, tipped the ball in for two more points, and sank two free throws for 10 of Orlando’s total 16 points. The Cavs dropped behind but then caught up in the last minute.
Almost caught up, that is. Final score: Orlando 116, Cleveland 114. The Magic needed just one more win to advance to the NBA Finals.
They didn’t get it the next game. LeBron James and the Cavs chewed them up and spit them out to take Game 5, 112–102. But the match after that, it was all Magic, all night long—and Dwight Howard led the way.
Five dunks, twelve out of sixteen free throws, plus layups, hook shots, jumpers, and bank shots. Howard was hitting from all over the floor until by night’s end, he had tallied 40 points, the most of his postseason career. He didn’t spend all his time shooting, though. He also crashed the boards for 14 rebounds, assisted on four other baskets, and walloped away one of Cleveland’s attempted shots.
At game’s end, the scoreboard said it all: Orlando Magic 103, Cleveland Cavaliers 90.
“We’re going to the NBA Finals!!!” Even in his blog, Dwight’s excitement and joy shone through. “Let me say it again so it can really soak in deep: WE’RE GOING TO THE NBA FINALS!!!”