Appropriately enough, a living, breathing 7-foot timeline of the franchise's past and present sat a few feet from the court.
The Orlando Magic crept within one victory on Tuesday night of making it to the NBA Finals, their first appearance since a certain onlooker named Shaquille O'Neal led the team to the title round in 1995.
In a fiercely played classic, the Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 116-114 in overtime at Amway Arena to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Magic now have three chances to knock out the league's best regular-season team and end the club's 13-year dry spell, much of it coming after Shaq exited as a free agent a year after being swept in the title round by the Houston Rockets.
Dwight Howard, often viewed as the second coming of Shaq, scored 10 of the Magic's 16 points in OT.
The Magic seized home-court advantage from the top-seeded Cavs in Game 1, and can oust them from the best-of-seven series in Game 5 on Thursday night at Quicken Loan Arena.
A loss to Cleveland would have tied the series at 2-2, giving the Cavs two of three remaining games at home.
Ousting LeBron James won't be easy. He will not go quietly, probably placing little stock in this historical trend that says this thing's over: Teams that go ahead 3-1 in seven-game series have advanced 95.6 percent of the time.
"When you have a guy like him on the other side of the court, you're a long, long way from it being over," Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy said.
After James' 3-pointer, Rashard Lewis made just 1 of 2 free throws for a 116-114 lead with 3.2 seconds on the clock. James tried to duplicate his Game 2 heroics, but this 3-pointer at the buzzer missed."
see details: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/basketball/magic/orl-sportsmagic-game4-27052709may27,0,6353521.story
No comments:
Post a Comment