Orlando

Just a Game Out of the Playoffs


Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services 

The Magic defeated the Raptors 108-96last night on the back of Grant Hill's 10-of-23 shooting and 21 points and Dwight Howard's seemingly constant trips to the line, where he finished 8-of-10, the only player in the game to get double digit attempts at the charity stripe. This was a very versatile win for the Magic as they had three players flirting with double-doubles and all five starters within shooting distance of the incredibly rare five-by-five.

Grant Hill and Dwight Howard were each a rebound or two short of a double-double. Steve Francis was one assist shy of a double-double. But the real story is the near miss of the five-by-five.

A five-by-five is five or more points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Unless you're Andrei Kirilenko, who accomplished the feat twice in one week last season, this is an incredibly rare accomplishment that seems to happen about once a decade or so. To have all five players close to it is amazing.

Close, of course, is relative. They each needed at least four blocks to get there, but still, that's quite close. Francis had 16 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, and 1 block. DeShawn Stevenson had 13 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, and 0 blocks. Hill had 21 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block. Howard had 18 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, and 1 block. Kelvin Cato had 17 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block.

All told, the starters really filled up the stat sheet on both ends of the court. It's that kind of versatility that will help get them that final playoffs spot.

They'll need to go through the talented Washington Wizards first.

NEXT GAME
The Orlando Magic (34-37, third in the Southeast) host their divisional rivals the Washington Wizards (40-30, second in the Southeast) tomorrow night, Friday, April 1st. Who will the April Fool be? Earlier in the season, it looked as if the Magic could vault past the Wizards for the second spot behind the Heat in the Southeast, especially when the Wizards were mainly injured. It never happened. Now the Magic are struggling just to make the playoffs, and every day counts. The game starts at 7:00pm Eastern and will be broadcast on Sun Sports, CSN, and NBA League Pass.

TEAM NOTES
Sight of the game: Pat Garrity had a dunk late in the third quarter.

INJURY UPDATE
Hedo Turkoglu(wrist) is on the injured list and out for the remainder of the season.Doug Christie(ankle) is also on the injured list and out indefinitely.Andrew DeClercq (knee) is on the injured list.Jameer Nelson(ribs) is injured but there's no room on the list for him.

NEWSLINES

Brian Schmitz ofThe Orlando Sentinelwrites: Pat Garrity steamed past a Canadian club of Toronto Raptors for a slam-dunk late in the third quarter. Not accustomed to seeing such variety, vertically speaking, from the Orlando Magic's 3-point shooter, Jameer Nelson chuckled hard enough from the bench to feel his tender ribs ache. Ah, but it hurt so good Wednesday night.... Garrity scored seven points in the period, and then gave Orlando its largest lead at 17 with his dunk. "I'm just glad I got it down," he laughed. Garrity's teammates were still talking about his dunk after the game. "If we can get him to do that all the time, I think he'll turn into the team's intimidator," Francis said.

Tim Povtak ofThe Orlando Sentinelwrites: Cato hit six of eight shots and five of six free throws for a season-high 17 points.He added six rebounds, a steal and a block to highlight his best game of the month. "We're going to need the extra points from wherever we can get them," said Magic guard Steve Francis. "And when defensive guys start scoring, it makes them play that much harder. We needed this."

John Denton ofFlorida Todaywrites: Orlando Magic general manager John Weisbrod was asked Wednesday on his weekly radio show about the enigma that is Kelvin Cato and after some brief stuttering and stammering, he basically admitted he had no way of telling from night to night which center would show up.The Cato the Magic have longed for all season -- the opportunistic scorer, the active defender contesting shots and the surly rebounder snatching boards in traffic -- finally showed signs of life Wednesday.

Jason Garcia ofThe Orlando Magicwrites: An Orlando Sentinel/WESH- NewsChannel 2 poll also conducted last week showed that 47 percent of likely voters in Orlando opposed spending hotel taxes on a new or renovated arena -- even if Magic owner Rich DeVos agreed to pay for half, something he has never been willing to do.That survey has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. Team officials would not comment on those results.