ORLANDO, Fla. - Stan Van Gundy turned to his assistant coaches on the Orlando Magic bench, unsure what to do with star Dwight Howard finally avoiding foul trouble and his team on his way to a blowout victory.

“Should I give Dwight a rest?” Van Gundy asked. “They said, ’No. Just let it ride.”’

What a ride it was.

Howard had 21 points and 12 rebounds in one of the most crushing playoff wins in Magic history, a 114-71 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal.

Howard added five blocks and avoided the fouls and frustration that overwhelmed him in the first round, helping the Magic go ahead by as many as 46 points. Vince Carter finished with 20 points as Orlando showed no signs of rust after an eight-day layoff since sweeping Charlotte.

Maybe all Howard needed was some time to cool off.

“I still played about the same amount of minutes,” Howard said, chuckling, because he wasn’t needed much in the fourth. “The first round is over with.”

Josh Smith scored 14 points and Zaza Pachulia had 12 points for a Hawks team that had little playoff poise. Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Thursday night in Orlando, and Atlanta will have to find some way to rally from such a paralyzing defeat.

“It’s embarrassing,” Hawks point guard Mike Bibby said. “They embarrassed us.”

Only a 47-point win in the first round against Boston in 1995 was a larger margin of victory in a playoff game for Orlando. This was just one big Magic highlight reel.

Nothing riled up fans more than when Howard snatched a layup attempt by Smith in the air, pulling down the ball with one hand. He threw the ball upcourt to Jason Williams, who lobbed a pass from just past midcourt for an alley-oop dunk to Mickael Pietrus that was part of 17 straight Magic points in the second quarter.

The arena was roaring so loud that, even after Hawks coach Mike Woodson called timeout and was on the floor pleading with officials for a goaltend, many players couldn’t hear the whistle and continued.

Finally, somebody had to tell the Magic to stop.

“I think the challenge is not to get carried away with the score,” Van Gundy said. “It was one of those nights where everything just snowballed.”

Timeouts might have been Atlanta’s only reprieve.

The Hawks were held to 10 points in the second quarter, and just 11 points in the third. Howard and most of the Magic starters weren’t even needed in the fourth, and Atlanta players covered their heads with towels on the bench in the final minutes.

Fresh off a Game 7 victory against undermanned Milwaukee, the Hawks were outhustled and outmuscled at every step. The little more than 48-hour turnaround didn’t keep them sharp, and they looked more like the team trying to get back in rhythm.

And they could do nothing to stop Howard.

“I didn’t allow anything to throw me off my game,” Howard said, adding that he made it a point not to engage officials about calls. “And I think that’s what I have to do the rest of the series, just not let things take me off my game, just stay free and clear.”

The Magic came out and hit the Hawks where it hurt — literally.

Howard grabbed a defensive rebound and swung his elbow to shake off Smith, hitting Atlanta’s forward in the face. Howard was whistled for a foul, and Smith iced down his cheek on the bench during a break.

The Hawks didn’t know what hit them.

“They made a run,” Pachulia said, “and they never looked back.”

That inside-outside game with Howard in the paint was the biggest reason Atlanta has struggled against its Southeast Division rival for several seasons. The Magic had taken six straight regular-season games in the series until the Hawks won on a buzzer-beating dunk by Smith in their last meeting.

“It was an ugly game for us,” Woodson said of the latest defeat. “I wish I knew what happened.”

Howard and Co. weren’t taking any chances this time.

If the NBA’s two-time defensive player of the year can avoid foul trouble, it could be another quick second-round stint for Atlanta. The Hawks were swept by Cleveland in the conference semifinals last year, and they’ll need to find a way to slow down Howard to have any chance this time.

Van Gundy was already thinking about how his team could put the win behind them.

“I told them that (Wednesday) I will have for them virtually every time in NBA playoff history that a team had a blowout win, came back and lost the next game,” Van Gundy said. “You’ve got to forget what happened.”

NOTES: NBA commissioner David Stern announced earlier in the day that Orlando’s new arena would host the 2012 All-Star game. … The fewest points an opponent has ever scored against Orlando in a playoff game was 68. … Actor Chris Tucker was among those in attendance.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (photo): ORLANDOSENTINEL

CLEVELAND - LeBron James chewed on his fingernails as he talked quietly with Mo Williams in the corner of Cleveland’s muted locker room.

As they reviewed the game’s final seconds, the two stars stared blankly at a boxscore floating in an ice tub above James’ feet.

They looked stunned. And for good reason.

No longer untested, no longer unbeaten. The Cavaliers finally met their match in the playoffs.

Dwight Howard scored 30 points, Rashard Lewis added 22 and the Orlando Magic rallied from a 15-point halftime deficit to hand James and the Cavaliers their first loss of the postseason, 107-106 on Wednesday night in the Eastern Conference finals opener.

James finished with 49 points, eight assists and six rebounds, but the league MVP limped off the floor after Cleveland’s loss — just its third in 46 home games.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” said Cavs guard Delonte West, who missed an open 3-pointer with five seconds remaining. “This one hurts.”

Lewis made a 3-pointer with 14.7 seconds left and the Magic, who dethroned the champion Boston Celtics in seven games in the previous round, survived two shots by Cleveland in the closing seconds. Williams missed a catch-and-shoot jumper off a jump ball as the horn sounded, dropping the Cavs to 8-1 in the postseason.

“It’s a big victory,” said Howard, who broke one of the shot clocks with a dunk in the opening minutes. “We kept fighting the whole game. We kept believing we could win.”

Hedo Turkoglu scored 15 points with 14 assists for Orlando.

Game 2 is Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena, which fell eerily silent after the Magic’s win.

As fans headed to the exits, they turned to observe James still on the floor and bent over in obvious pain. He seemed to be bothered by cramps in the fourth quarter and was tended to by Cleveland’s training staff before slowly making his way to the locker room.

Perhaps the long layoff — the Cavs hadn’t played since May 11 — contributed to James not being himself at the end.

Cleveland gave this one away. The Cavaliers lost their grip on the game with a stagnant third quarter that carried into the fourth.

Orlando, which went 2-1 vs. Cleveland in the regular season, took its first lead at 85-84 with 10:06 left when Anthony Johnson buried a 3-pointer from the left corner. The bucket seemed to suck the air out of the raucous building and Cavs coach Mike Brown quickly called a timeout to stop the Magic’s run and get James back in.

The Magic, though, kept making big shots with Lewis hitting a jumper with 31.6 seconds left to give Orlando a 104-103 lead.

James then drove and scored on a runner while drawing a sixth foul on Howard, who added 13 rebounds. James completed the three-point play for a 106-104 lead but Lewis came down and nailed his 3-pointer over a closing Anderson Varejao.

Source (article): NBCSPORTS

Source (pictures): EVERYJOE, BBALLCITY

CLEVELAND - Unstoppable at both ends of the floor this season, LeBron James is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.

James, who led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a team-record 66 regular-season wins and the top overall seed in the playoffs, will receive the award Monday, a person with knowledge of the choice told The Associated Press. James chose Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, his alma mater, for the presentation, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made.

The Cavaliers announced a “major” news conference for 4 p.m. at the school, but did not give the reason.

James is the first Cavaliers player to win the award. He averaged 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.2 assists this season, his sixth as a pro. He also finished second in voting for defensive player of the year, making him perhaps the league’s most dominant two-way player since Michael Jordan.

At 24 years, 106 days on the final day of the regular season, James is the youngest player to win the award since Moses Malone (24 years, 16 days) in 1978-79. Wes Unseld was 23 when he won it in 1968-69.

James vied all season for MVP honors with the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Miami’s Dwyane Wade. The three played on the U.S. gold medalist Olympic team last summer and seemed to upstage each other nightly.

Focused right from the start, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound James sharpened his already formidable skills this season.

He started a career-high 81 games and set personal bests in field-goal (49) and free-throw (79) percentages as well as blocks (93). James became the second player to post five straight seasons of at least 27 points, six rebounds and six assists. The other is Oscar Robertson, whose extraordinarily versatile game is the one James’ is most often compared.

James nearly averaged a triple-double — 32 points, 11.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists — as the top-seeded Cavaliers breezed through the first round of the playoffs, sweeping the Detroit Pistons in four games. Cleveland will host the Atlanta Hawks in Game 1 on Tuesday.

It’s no surprise James would select his high school for the ceremony. It’s where he won three state basketball championships and where he burst onto the national scene, becoming a Sports Illustrated cover subject at just 17 years old. He announced plans to skip college in the Fighting Irish’s quaint gym and recently filmed a “60 Minutes” interview there, where his retired No. 23 jersey hangs on a wall.

A few days after the Cavaliers were eliminated in last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, losing a Game 7 in Boston, James got back in the gym.

Despite scoring 45 points in the finale, James didn’t feel he had done enough to get his team past the Celtics. So he went to work. He spent endless hours at the Cavaliers’ training facility working on his jump shot, which has never looked better or been more accurate. He practiced finishing at the rim with his left hand, making him nearly impossible to stop inside.

James also began lifting weights like never before, adding muscle to his considerable frame. Then, once he began working out with the Olympic team, James set out to refine his defensive game and became an elite stopper, often guarding the other team’s best player — regardless of position.

In a league of remarkable athletes, James, with his package of power and speed, may well stand alone.

“His leaping ability with his strength and explosion, he’s by himself,” said Cavaliers assistant coach Chris Jent, who spent most of last summer working with James. “We don’t have anyone in the league like him. Baseline to baseline he has to be the fastest or one of the fastest guys ever, and he can do it with the ball.

“And then once he gets there, his jumping is up there — maybe by himself. That combination along with his mental attitude and aggressiveness make him unguardable.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): MAGAZINE.CONTINENTAL, SPORTSHUBLA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading for allegedly using confidential information on a stock sale to avoid more than $750,000 in losses.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban on Monday in federal court in Dallas. The agency alleged that in June 2004, Cuban was invited to get in on the coming stock offering by Mamma.com Inc. after he agreed to keep the information private.

The SEC said Cuban knew the shares would be sold below the current market price, and a few hours after receiving the information, told his broker to sell his entire stake of 600,000 shares in the search engine company before the public announcement of the offering.

The SEC is seeking a court judgment against Cuban finding that he violated the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, an injunction against future violations, an unspecified civil penalty and restitution of the losses Cuban allegedly avoided.

Unless he is subject to an injunction, Cuban “is likely to commit such violations again in the future,” according to the SEC suit.

Attorneys for Cuban in Washington and Dallas didn’t immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

The 50-year-old Cuban also owns Landmark Theaters, a large national chain dedicated to independent films, and the HDNet cable television channel.

He is one of the richest people in the world, according to Forbes magazine, which pegged his net worth at $2.3 billion as of March 2007.

SOURCE: FOX SPORTS ON MSN.COM

On this day in 1991, basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson stuns the world by announcing his sudden retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers, after testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, many Americans viewed AIDS as a gay white man’s disease. Johnson (1959- ), who is African American and heterosexual, was one of the first sports stars to go public about his HIV-positive status.

Revered as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Johnson spent his entire 13-season NBA career with the Lakers, helping them to win five championships in the 1980s. The 6′9″ point guard, a native of Lansing, Michigan, was famous for his extraordinary passing skills, contagious smile and love of the game. In 1981, he signed a 25-year deal with the Lakers for $25 million, one of the NBA’s first over-the-top contracts.

Johnson, a three-time NBA “Most Valuable Player” and 12-time All-Star team member, didn’t completely hang up his basketball shoes after announcing his retirement in 1991. He was voted most valuable player of the 1992 NBA All-Star Game and played on the Olympic “Dream Team” (alongside Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Patrick Ewing) that won gold for the U.S. in Barcelona that summer. He briefly returned to the Lakers for the 1993-94 season as head coach and made a short-lived comeback as a Lakers player in the 1995-96 season.

Today, Johnson is a prominent spokesman for AIDS awareness and a successful businessman, earning millions from a range of ventures, including movie theaters and restaurants. He serves as an example of how a variety of drug treatments have transformed AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition for many people in the U.S. Still, some 25 years after the first AIDS cases were reported, 25 million people worldwide have died of AIDS and another 40 million have been infected with the virus.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2008-11-07