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Heat 90, magic 78

Miami Heat dominates Orlando Magic, avenging earlier loss

 

In its first home game after a dominant road trip, the Heat put on a dazzling show in front of former President Bill Clinton, rolling by the Magic.

a1fernandez@MiamiHerald.com

The Heat was back home Sunday.

And it brought its dominant play from the recent road trip with it.

Led by the hot shooting of Dwyane Wade and a near triple-double from LeBron James, the Heat had no trouble adding Orlando to its growing list of dominant victories after a 90-78 triumph at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Heat won its sixth consecutive game, all of which have been by a double-digit margin, tying the second-longest such streak in franchise history.

Miami (25-7) has the NBA’s best record and continues to dominate Eastern Conference competition. The Heat improved to 20-4 against conference foes, becoming the first team so far this season to get to 20 conference wins, and has won seven in a row at home. The loss snapped Orlando’s four-game winning streak.

“We’re just playing good basketball right now,” James said. “We’ve got a strategy going into a game, and we’re just executing both offensively and defensively.”

James finished two assists shy of a triple-double with a final stat line of 25 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. Wade was sharp from the outset, shooting 6 of 8 in the first quarter and finishing 13 of 23 for the contest with a game-high 27 points.

But it was solid defense that forced Orlando into a miserable shooting day and helped the Heat play much better against the last opponent that beat it.

“Our guys were very committed and much more disciplined in this game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Even when you do things right, the way [Orlando] shoots the ball and the way Dwight Howard collapses your defense, it might be one of those nights when they knock down 16 or 17 threes.”

The Magic (20-12) entered having won eight of its past 10, making 17 threes on a team-record 42 attempts when it beat the Heat in Orlando on Feb. 8. That night, Howard had 25 points and 24 rebounds.

On Sunday, Orlando made 11 threes on 29 attempts. The Magic was also forced to play without guard Jason Richardson, who was scratched from the starting lineup shortly before tip-off after complaining of chest pains.

Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said Richardson told trainers of his problem when he was headed for the pregame shootaround.

“We don’t know [what it was],” Van Gundy said. “He went out there and they took him for a chest X-ray. We’ll find out. He was in a lot of discomfort when it happened. I’m not even sure he made it to the court for the shootaround.”

J.J. Redick started for Richardson and made his first three three-point shots, finishing with a team-high 17 points.

“The [doctors] told me not to play,” Richardson said. “I was scared. When I started running, I felt a sharp pain going towards my chest area. It’s nothing to play with. I’m glad it was nothing major. It started [Saturday] night. I thought it was heart burn. Once I took that step and started to run, I knew it was something else.”

After the early sharpshooting cooled off, there was little the Magic could do to slow down the Heat.

Orlando shot only 36.5 percent from the field for the game, including a 28.6 percent clip in the first half. Had it not been for the early sharpshooting from Redick, who went 5 of 7 from three-point range, the Heat could have really blown the game open in the first half — a trend on its recent road trip.

The Heat frustrated Howard without having to rely too much on its centers defending the Magic’s All-Star. Howard finished with 15 rebounds, but only three came on the offensive end, and he was limited to 12 points.

“[Udonis Haslem] and LeBron showed the versatility of their defense,” Spoelstra said. “They can truly guard multiple guys, and you can’t guard a player that great with one. UD was able to use his speed and prevent the ball from coming into the post while they were trying to exploit it. Other guys had great ball pressure so they couldn’t just dump [it] into [Howard].”

Orlando also shot 52 percent from the free-throw line, most of which came from Howard going 2 of 10 from the foul line. The output was a season-low for a Heat opponent. Orlando also committed 15 turnovers.

“They still hit over 10 threes,” Wade said. “This team is going to shoot a lot of threes, and they’re going to make some. The biggest thing for us is not giving them second chances.”

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