The Thunder defeated the Magic last night in a game that you could bifurcate between the first three quarters and the 4th. In the first three, the Magic looked like a well-tuned machine that did what every they wanted to offensively, had a dominant force in Dwight Howard, and the Thunder looked confused and disorganized. At the end of the first half, it felt like the Thunder were fortunate to be down only three points. Offensively they were a one man Russell Westbrook show, and defensively they were getting ripped apart by the Magic offense.
I suppose though that being a 4th quarter team is better than being a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd quarter team. Once the 4th started, the Thunder finally solved the Magic offense and Kevin Durant came back to life. He had struggled mightily with the Magic's aggressive defensive play and had turned the ball over five times up to that point. However, in the 4th Durant re-discovered his aggressive mode. He took huge shots, got to the free throw line, grabbed key rebounds, and closed out the Magic in the end.
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