MAGIC DEFEAT CAVS IN OT TO TAKE 3-1 SERIES LEAD

For much of the past year, the Cleveland Cavaliers appeared almost preordained to become NBA champions.  Now, they’re in a battle to simply survive.  The Orlando Magic are now one game away from reaching the NBA Finals—and eliminating LeBron James and the Cavs—by virtue of a 116-114 overtime victory on their Amway Center home court on Tuesday night.  Dwight Howard scored ten points in the OT period, and LeBron James missed a potential game winning three point shot at the buzzer to give the Magic the win.

Orlando covered as a +1’ home underdog, which improved their ATS record when getting points this season to 18-6.  They’ve won and covered six of the last seven meetings with Cleveland at home, and brought home the bacon for their financial backers for the sixth straight game.  Cleveland, meanwhile, lost both SU and ATS dropping their fourth straight game to the pointspread.  The Cavs are now on a 0-4-1 ATS run after opening the NBA playoffs 7-0 SU and ATS.  Orlando also improved their overall ATS record against the Cavs to 13-1 over the past three years (10-4 SU).  The combined 230 points obliterated the closing total of 188’ and was the third of the four games in the series to go OVER.

Dwight Howard led the Magic with a monstrous ‘double/double’ consisting of 27 points and 14 boards, while Rafer Alston added 26 points.  Rashard Lewis and reserve Mickael Pietrus each scored 17 points, while Hedo Turkoglu added 15 points and eight assists.  LeBron James led all scorers with a huge 44 point game, adding 12 rebounds and 7 assists.  Mo Williams contributed 18 points, Delonte West 17 and Zydrunas Ilgauskas 12.  The Magic bench outscored their Cleveland counterparts by a 26-14 margin.

Afterwards, Magic guard Alston said that his team was up to the challenge of putting away the Cavs:

"You can almost taste it. We've got to win one more game and it's not going to be easy."

Dwight Howard elaborated:

"We just have to keep fighting. We have an excellent opportunity in front of us. We can't think that anything's going to be easy. As a team, we believe that anytime we step on the floor and play our brand of basketball we can win. We're not happy with just winning a few games in the Eastern Conference finals. We want to win the whole thing."

Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, meanwhile, marveled at the skill of LeBron James:

"With LeBron James on the court, doesn't 3.2 seconds seem like two minutes? We had two guys on him and he made a move like a tight end, caught the ball and still got off a reasonable shot. This guy is unbelievable."

Game five will take place at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland where the Cavs have lost only three games combined during the regular season and playoffs.  One of those defeats, however, was to Orlando in the first game of this series.  Should the Cavs force a game six it will be back in Orlando on Saturday with game seven, if necessary, back in Cleveland on Monday night.