House Party! Magic rout 76ers in final regular-season game at Amway

By Brian Schmitz - Orlando Sentinel

10:32 PM EDT, April 14, 2010

Even the ever relentless Stan Van Gundy took a moment on Fan Appreciation Night to tell his players how much he appreciated them after the Orlando Magic ended the regular season.

"The guys appreciated Stan doing that," Magic President Bob Vander Weide said. "But you could look in their eyes and tell they were done with this part. They're ready to move on to what we all want."

And so begins the Magic's steely-eyed journey to bring home an NBA championship.

The first steps start either Saturday or Sunday at home against the Charlotte Bobcats in the best-of-seven first round series. Orlando won the season series 3-1.

They Magic fittingly turned the last regular-season game Wednesday night at Amway Arena into a victory --- drilling the Philadelphia 76ers 125-111 --- and possibly much, much more.

They assured themselves home-court advantage to play for the title…. if they can return to the Finals in June.

By virtue of their victory against the 76ers, the Magic finished 59-23 and captured the second-best record in the league behind the Cleveland Cavaliers (61-21).

As the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Cavs will hold home-court throughout the postseason --- unless they are upset. The Magic ousted them last season in six games, making their first trip to the Finals since 1995.

The Magic wrestled the second-best record from the slumping Los Angeles Lakers, playing their starters down the stretch instead of resting them.

And they did it with an impressive finishing kick, posting a league-best 33-8 record the second half of the season.

Finishing the season by winning 20 of 23 games, including the last six, the Magic took care of the 76ers (27-55) with relative ease to bid farewell to 21-year-old Amway Arena.

Cameras flashed throughout the game as the sell-out crowd sensed the historic closing after the postseason. The club will begin play in October in the new Amway Center.

Jameer Nelson led the Magic with 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting against the 76ers and Vince Carter added 17, going 4-of-5 from 3-point territory. Dwight Howard scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds and Matt Barnes had 12 points as Orlando shot a sizzling 59.8 percent.

Orlando broke an NBA single-season record for most 3-pointers made, with 841, passing the 837 by the 2005-06 Phoenix Suns.

"Sometimes, all anybody cares about is the playoffs and we know what that's all about," Van Gundy said. "But what these guys have done for six-and-a- half months… it has been a very professional group of people."

Magic players, to a man, say they are ready to make a run at a title.

"I'd be disappointed if we didn't win the championship," Nelson said.

Added Howard, "We'll be highly disappointed."

Howard said his team is better than last season's, adding, "We're deeper and we're more motivated to get a ring."

The Magic tied last season's 59-win total, beat every team in the league at least once and finished 34-7 at home.

They went through only one bad stretch the entire season, dropping seven of nine in January.

"We really grew up as a team from the middle of the season," Howard said. "What impressed me was that we didn't let it separate us."

The Magic made some significant changes after losing in the title round in five games to the Lakers last season, bringing in Carter and four other new players.

The franchise's mentality coming into the season was this: championship-or-bust.

Howard and other players say their goal is to deliver the trophy to owner Rich DeVos, 83.

"When they told me that, I couldn't believe it,'' said DeVos, 83, chairman of the franchise. "I'm honored by that. That's a rallying cry, I guess…. to win a championship before I die."

They'll need to win 16 playoffs games. Carter, addressing fans before the game, mentioned DeVos and added, "Thanks for the wonderful season. We got 16 more to go."

Posted Mar 24 2010 10:23AM – John Schuhmann, NBA,com

They haven't had an attention-grabbing, double-digit winning streak like the Mavericks, and they haven't charged up the standings like the Bucks. As of Wednesday morning, they're only a single game closer to first place in the Eastern Conference then they were at the All-Star break.

But since the break, the Orlando Magic have been the best team in the NBA ... by far.

The Magic are 14-3 since the break, second only to the Bucks (15-3). But statistically, Orlando has been more dominant than anybody. The Magic have outscored their opponents by 14.8 points every 100 possessions over those 17 games. The next best team since the break has been the Phoenix Suns, who have been just 9.3 points better than their opponents.

The Magic have been terrific defensively since November. For the second straight season, they're the top defense in the league, allowing 99.7 points every 100 possessions, a hair less than the Celtics. But it's been on offense that they've taken off since the break.

The famously excitable coach seems able now to move past the occasional defeat without much stress.

"You're going to lose games and you have to deal with it and move on," Van Gundy said Monday. "You try to keep in perspective how you're playing and getting better. And we've been playing very well."

With Van Gundy, though, happiness is always relative. It's not as if he's satisfied.

"I'm never comfortable," he said. "I'm happy with the way we're playing. But comfortable, no. Because there's always areas where you've got to get better. You want to see improvement in those areas going down the stretch, and when you don't see it, you get uncomfortable."

If Van Gundy is happy with the way his team is playing -- as he should be -- he should be even happier with the way they're talking. The Magic players have the same outlook as their coach.

"I don't think we're at the level we want to be," center Dwight Howard said. "We're still gelling. We're still learning how to play together. We just want to be rolling come playoff time."

Monday's victory in Philadelphia was win No. 50, a mark that Carter had never reached in his first 11 seasons in the league. But the occasion brought him no satisfaction.

"I'm looking at the bigger picture," he said afterward. "I want to win it all."

The Magic aren't going to catch the Cavaliers, whom they currently trail by six games in the standings, for the best record in the league. And they're not likely to be caught by the Celtics or Hawks, both of whom they lead by 4 1/2 games.

They're as locked into their playoff seed as any team outside of Cleveland or L.A. But no matter what the stakes are, or how well they're playing, Carter says that the mentality stays the same. While there will be a loss here or there, the Magic aren't about to take their foot off the pedal.

"It can all be taken away in one series," he said. "So the approach is, each and every game, do the job. Look at [the opponent], I don't care who they are, as one of the best."

That may be difficult on some nights, especially at this time of year. Orlando's post-break schedule hasn't been all that challenging. Nine of the 14 wins since the All-Star Game have come against lottery-bound teams. But two have been over the most important of opponents. The Magic beat the Cavs on Feb. 21 and the Lakers on March 7. And last week, the Magic handed the resurgent Spurs their worst loss of the season.

Orlando is taking care of business against the weaker teams, and the Magic have held their own against the rest of the elite. Van Gundy may want to fine tune some things, but with three weeks to go in the regular season, no team is more ready for the playoffs than the Magic.

It's looking very likely that Cleveland and Orlando will meet again in the conference finals. And should that happen, the Cavs will again have home-court advantage. They have the best player in the world and a better supporting cast than they've ever put around him.

But that still may not be enough to get past the team that knocked them off a year ago. Because right now, the Magic are the best team in basketball.