NBA Playoffs Results

vs(From the Associated Press) - 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.”

vs(From the Associated Press) - Carlos Boozer drove the lane, and his shot was disdainfully blocked by Lamar Odom. The Utah forward grabbed the ball to try another—and Pau Gasol took a turn swatting it.



Although Boozer is not a small man, the Los Angeles Lakers are taller, thicker, just plain bigger—and that could be an insurmountable problem for the Utah Jazz in this second-round playoff series.

Kobe Bryant scored 30 points, Gasol added 22 points and 15 rebounds, and the Lakers methodically pounded the ball down low in a 111-103 victory over the Jazz on Tuesday night, taking a 2-0 series lead.

Andrew Bynum had 17 points and 14 rebounds for the defending NBA champions, who ruthlessly exploited their twin 7-foot starters’ height advantage, along with the 6-foot-10 Odom’s presence off the bench.

With 64 points in the paint, a 58-40 rebounding advantage and 13 blocked shots, the Lakers maintained a medium-sized lead throughout the second half of a disjointed, foul-choked game that lasted over 2 1/2 hours.

“They played extremely, extremely well,” Bryant said of his big men. “Pau and Andrew, their work on the boards tonight was sensational. Lamar coming off the bench with 15 rebounds was just incredible. We really did a great job, and aside from scoring, the big fellas, obviously rebounding and controlling the paint.”

The Lakers didn’t mind skipping showtime for a steady win that put them halfway to their third straight trip to the Western Conference finals. Los Angeles is 40-1 in franchise history after winning the first two games of a seven-game series.

Game 3 is Saturday night in Salt Lake City.

“We’re not going to be frustrated,” said Boozer, who had 20 points and 12 rebounds. “We’re not going to get demoralized. We’re not going to back down. We’re going to keep fighting, keep attacking and stay aggressive.”

For the third straight postseason, the Lakers have a 2-0 series lead over the Jazz after consecutive wins at Staples Center, where Utah has lost 16 straight games—including eight in the playoffs.

Paul Millsap had 26 points and 11 rebounds, with the undersized power forward single-handedly keeping the Jazz in the game at times. C.J. Miles added 20 points for Utah, which will get three days off to plot another way to counter the Lakers’ obvious advantages down low.

But without injured big men Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko, the Jazz acknowledge they probably don’t have the big bodies necessary to contend with the Lakers’ height and sophisticated inside play.

“Their rebounding tonight was just something we could not handle,” Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. “I don’t like to use the word ‘disheartening.’ I thought our guys played extremely hard to try and stay in the ballgame.”

Deron Williams managed 15 points on 4-for-16 shooting and nine assists for the Jazz, who never were close to being blown out—but who just didn’t have the size or the game plan to keep up with Los Angeles’ patient inside game.

“We’d try to get in the lane, and there were two or three guys there,” Williams said. “Their length bothered us tonight. We’ve just got to hit some shots. We’ll do better.”

The Lakers blew a fourth-quarter lead in Game 1 but rallied to win on a fantastic finish by Bryant, who scored 11 points in the final four minutes. Things never got that interesting in Game 2 despite the Lakers’ 20 turnovers: Los Angeles’ big men ruled, with even Ron Artest contributing 16 points despite another awful 3-point shooting performance.

“We got some great play tonight from our big guys,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “All of them played pretty well.”

The Jazz actually got within four points in the final minutes, but Bryant finally injected a little excitement with a shot clock-beating jumper, an emphatic swat on Utah’s next drive to the hoop, and a dunk in a 45-second span of the final minutes.

Los Angeles appeared determined to use its advantages from the start of Game 2, first weathering Utah’s impressive shooting start before continually pounding the ball down low for 38 first-half points in the paint.

The Jazz quickly lost their outside stroke, and the Lakers’ starting frontcourt combined for 36 points in the first half—including 12 from Artest, despite his stubborn insistence on shooting from outside. He went 1 for 7 on 3-pointers in Game 2, dropping to 7 for 42 in the postseason.

“I don’t know,” Artest said when asked to explain himself. “I feel great. I don’t really know. I just have to keep playing basketball.”

The Lakers took a 58-46 halftime lead with just eight points from Bryant, and Bynum didn’t appear limited by his injured right knee, getting 11 points and 13 rebounds in just 16 minutes. Millsap kept the Jazz in it with 16 points off the bench.