Magic Beat Cavs; Don’t Call It An Upset

That didn’t feel like an upset, did it? ↵
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↵Maybe I’m crazy for saying that, but there’s little reason to think that 1) Dwight Howard can’t be a force through three quarters; 2) the Magic, a team drowning in 3-point marksmen, can’t get their long-range game going; 3) Hedo Turkoglu (pictured), one of the league’s most underrated players, can’t do a little bit of everything. That’s Orlando’s game plan, and while it’s easy to joke about it or see the team as flawed, the Magic have the talent to make it work. Yes, they’d be even better with Jameer Nelson, who really stitched the whole thing together, and sometimes you get the feeling that you’re watching a Rube Goldberg device unfold over four quarters. When it works, though, as it did tonight, it’s hard to argue.↵
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↵And it’s not as though the Cavs played a terrible game. Mo Williams didn’t exactly live up to his reputation as LeBron’s first mate, and the ball wasn’t moving particularly well, but King James had the kind of playoff performance that, had Cleveland won, would’ve gone straight into the pantheon. Dwight Howard may have taken out the shot clock early on, but LeBron’s untroubled drive right into the reigning DPOY was almost as absurd a feat of sheer strength. Given how enormous James has gotten, this battle of superstars seems almost as relevant as Wade/James or James/Kobe. ↵
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↵All hagiography aside, James played the second-most impressive game of his postseason career, his team was certainly above average, and the Cavs were at home. The Magic were just better. The Cavs, arguably the league’s best defensive team, couldn’t keep them down in a 16-point hole; when Orlando is firing on all cylinders, it can beat the best teams in the league. If anything, LeBron had to exceed expectations and be nearly perfect to keep the Cavs in Game 1—right down to that improbable jump-ball tip to Mo Williams for the final shot with one second left. Even James can’t pull that off on a regular basis.
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