Evan Fournier’s game-winning runner pushes Magic past Rockets
After leading by as many as 14 points on Wednesday, the Orlando Magic nearly spit the bit. Scott Skiles’ young team, which has made such major strides defensively through the first third of the season, allowed the Houston Rockets to rip off a 14-2 run over the first five minutes of the fourth quarter and eventually take the lead, as the Rockets held a 101-100 advantage after a pair of Patrick Beverley free throws with 26.9 seconds remaining.
The Magic needed someone to take a step forward to stop the bleeding and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They turned, as they have so often this season, to shooting guard Evan Fournier, and he delivered yet again:
[Don’t miss Yahoo’s NBA free roll on Christmas. Join our $25K Stocking Stuffer Contest]
Fournier took a high screen from center Nikola Vucevic, then drove left against the dogged defense of Beverley. He used a slight hesitation at the 3-point arc to wrong-foot Beverley a touch, then bulled his way into the lane and used his superior size to bump off the defender, raise up and hit an off-balance runner that gave Orlando a 102-101 lead with 14.2 seconds remaining in regulation.
The Rockets’ attempt to answer came up empty when a bread-and-butter screen-and-roll between stars James Harden and Dwight Howard resulted not in a free run to the rim for Harden or an alley-oop dunk for Howard, but rather a tough-to-handle pass that Howard had to redirect to teammate Trevor Ariza in the short corner for a 3-point try that went awry. That forced Houston to play the foul game to keep the game alive, and Magic forward Tobias Harris came through, hitting a pair of clutch free throws that pushed Orlando’s lead to three with 1.1 seconds remaining.
Houston had one last chance to knot it up, and everyone in Amway Center knew they’d be looking for Harden, who had scored 10 of his game-high 31 points in the fourth quarter to help the Rockets claw back into the game. Skiles’ charges were ready, though, preventing Harden from getting a clean release to the ball and forcing Terrence Jones to look elsewhere for his inbounds pass:
Marcus Thornton’s try didn’t get anywhere close, meaning Fournier’s runner held up as the game-winner in Orlando’s 104-101 victory.
After the play, Rockets interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was livid on the sideline, and he explained why after the game:
The object of his ire: Magic guard Victor Oladipo’s, um, hands-on defense in preventing Harden from getting free to take the feed on that final possession:
On one hand, he seems to have a legitimate gripe, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the league suggest that Oladipo should’ve been whistled for a foul when the “last five minutes” report pops up on Thursday. On the other, though, the Rockets might not have needed that late-game break to go their way had they not allowed Orlando to shoot 52.7 percent from the floor and score a whopping 60 points in the paint, led by the 7-foot Vucevic, who continued to make his case for an Eastern Conference All-Star berth by scoring a Magic-high 21 points on 10-for-16 shooting to go with six rebounds, three assists and a block in 35 minutes of work.
[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
That said, the Magic certainly weren’t without fault on the evening, especially in the fourth quarter, when their defense struggled mightily to contend with a small-ball Rockets lineup in which both Harden and point guard Ty Lawson (nine of his 11 points in the final frame in his return from a two-game suspension) and gave up all of the double-digit cushion they’d built through the first three quarters. But before they could compete the collapse, Fournier found a sliver of daylight and saved Orlando’s bacon.
“He did just what you should do,” Skiles said after the game, according to JoshRobbins of the Orlando Sentinel. “You put the ball on the floor and try to go make a play, see if you can score or get fouled, don’t settle for a terrible jump shot or anything like that. And he was able to get the ball to go in.”
The bank shot gave Fournier 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting to go with five rebounds, four assists and a steal in 35 minutes of work. It also gave Orlando its fifth win in sixth games, improving the Magic to 17-12 on the season, the fifth-best mark in the Eastern Conference.
“We won the game, but the way we did it, I thought we could’ve done it a little better,” Fournier said, according to Robbins.
Sure. Then again, this result sure beats the alternative.
More NBA coverage:
– – – – – – –
Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don’t Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, “Like” BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
