Magic 110, Pacers 96: Howard is pretty good

Went to my first Magic game of the year tonight. The games are as good as they have ever been. The O-Rena is not rocking quite yet... but it is late November, so not too worried about the fan stuff. The show is still a lot of fun to go to.

But I digress from what is really important. The game. And this one was a doozy.

The Magic built a solid lead in the second quarter and extended it past 20 points in the third. They then had to hold on as Danny Granger caught fire to pull Indiana back to within single digits. But the team never threatened in what turned out to be an easy victory for Orlando.

It was one of those taking care of business nights. The result was really positive.

What else was really positive? I don't know. Maybe Dwight Howard's 32 points and 21 rebounds. It was a simply dominating performance.

It helped that Orlando was making a concerted effort to feed him the ball (much more than they had in the two previous games that I had watched). But he took advantage of every touch. He was 11 of 15 from the floor and very few of them were dunks. A lot of his shots came off of good post moves and very smooth-looking hook shots.

Howard has developed some touch around the basket and is not just all about his power. This is a dangerous development for the rest of the league.

Defensively, he set the tone with some blocked shots and dominated the glass. Howard was even stealing rebounds from his teammates. He was a man possessed tonight and it looked effortless at times for him.

With him off the court, Orlando struggled offensively. But Indiana had no answers and he was the pure reason why the team found itself in a hole.

Granger led the Pacers with 27 points and local product Marquis Daniels added a quiet 21. Hedo Turkoglu followed Howard with 22 points and Rashard Lewis added 24 (or maybe it is the other way around, I am too lazy to switch it... they both played well). Anthony Johnson, starting his third straight game, scored 16.