Magic show no signs of hangover in win

INDIANAPOLIS — As his team prepared for Tuesday night's game at
Indiana, Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy pondered the possibility of a
hangover lingering from his team's epic ineptitude the previous night
in Boston, where the Magic scored a franchise record-low 56 points and
lost by 31 to a Celtics team missing two starters.

However, the
only pounding headache this night was the one Orlando administered. Ryan
Anderson scored 24 and Dwight Howard became the franchise's all-time
leading scorer as the Magic showed resilience in routing the Pacers
102-83. It was the first home loss for Indiana (11-5) and allowed
Orlando (12-5) to move into third place in the Eastern Conference.

"When
you take a loss like last night, people get focused a little bit," Van
Gundy said. "You quit taking winning for granted. Sometimes when you
win a lot you start thinking about other things. I thought we played
well defensively and our effort was lot better."

Howard surpassed
Nick Anderson (10,650) atop Orlando's career scoring list,
appropriately, with a dunk early in the third quarter and finished with
14 points and nine rebounds, just missing his 13th double-double of the
season.

"For anybody else that would be a career-defining
accomplishment. On Dwight's list of accomplishments it might not even
rank that high, I don't know," Van Gundy said. "When you're first team
All-NBA and starting in All-Star Games and Defensive Player of the Year
three times in a row, I don't know where that ranks. But it's still a
great accomplishment."

How long Howard remains in Orlando is a
subject of much discussion and debate. To be sure, the Magic have the
look of a contender in a wide-open Eastern Conference as long as he
anchors the middle. For now, however, he was humbled by the
accomplishment.

"It does mean a lot," he said. "Not too many
players in this league can say that they were their franchise’s leading
scorer. It’s a humbling experience."

The oddity, and perhaps the
most encouraging sign for the Magic, was Orlando's level of performance
with Howard on the bench. He played less than seven minutes in the first
half due to foul trouble, but the Magic began their turnaround with a
17-6 second-quarter run that was keyed by forward Earl Clark. The
little-used reserve blocked three shots in the period and prevented the
Pacers from establishing any semblance of a post offense.

Pacers
players thought there was too much emphasis on the post offense and not
enough on the normal assortment of pick-and-rolls. Indiana managed just
eight assists, tying a franchise low for a home game (previously set
against the Magic in 2004).

Coming off a rare 2-1 record on a
Western Conference road trip that included Sunday’s 98-96 victory over
the Lakers, the Pacers were surprisingly flat, shooting 39.7 percent and
committing 19 turnovers.

"Maybe the worst thing that happened to
us was Dwight Howard getting in foul trouble," said Danny Granger (16
points). "We went post, post, post, pound, pound, pound, and that led to
eight assists and 19 turnovers."

Orlando had lost two of three
coming in, with the Boston blowout a particularly troubling performance.
The bounce-back victory will help soothe Van Gundy, but it won't erase
his memory.

"From my standpoint, when you go to a game like that
and as a coach you can't find any answers, yeah, it's going to eat at
you for a long time," he said. "… Even after tonight's game that one
will eat at me. Probably July, August, September, year 2013, '14, '15,
that one's going to eat at me. That's just the way it is."