Hill, Francis big in Magic's win over Lakers
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - With Grant Hill on the team, the Orlando Magic have learned a thing or two about comebacks.
So trailing by 18 points against the Los Angeles Lakers was no big deal.
Steve Francis flirted with a triple double for second straight game, by scoring 32 points, grabbing 8 boards and dealing 9 assists against his old coach and mentor Rudy Tomjanovich. Grant Hill added 27 points and 12 rebounds and the Magic rallied for a 122-113 victory over the Lakers on Friday night.
"We're an explosive team," said Hill, who also had four assists and four steals. "It's just a matter of when we're going to explode. We did that and got ourselves back in the game." "Stevie and Hedo were huge for us tonight, we are starting to really come together."
The Magic were behind 39-21 early in the second quarter but came from behind thanks to an impressive performance from Francis and another encouraging outing from Hill, who was severely hampered by an ankle injury during his first four seasons in Orlando.
Kobe Bryant led the Lakers in scoring for the seventh consecutive game, finishing with a season-high 41 points on 14-of-31 shooting. He was 11-of-12 from the free throw line.
Bryant's three-point play with a little more than five minutes to play cut Orlando's lead to 107-103. But Hill hit a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired with 1:38 to play, giving the Magic a 116-106 lead.
He added another one with 28 seconds to play that sent the crowd into a frenzy and got him a well-deserved standing ovation.
"It's great to see him out there. It really is," Bryant said. "He's always been a guy I looked at and patterned my game after, even when he was at Duke. I've been a fan of Grant Hill's for a long, long time."
Hill's two 3-pointers matched his total from the previous four seasons.
"I know my game is driving and slashing and taking it to the basket, but from time to time I'll take one," said Hill, adding that he practiced more than 200 shots a day from beyond the arc this summer.
He acknowledged that his performance was somewhat vintage Grant Hill - with so many aspects of his game working at the same time - but he also said there was one thing missing.
"My jumping's not there, but it's coming," he said. "It may not be like it was, but it's going to come."
Hill guarded Bryant much of the night and kept him from completely dominating the game, another sign that his latest comeback could be his last.
"It's not going to get anymore difficult that that," Hill said. "He can slash, he can hit 3s, he can drive, he can do so many things that he's a difficult matchup."
Entering this season, a stress fracture in Hill's left ankle limited him to 47 games since joining the Magic in 2000. In that time, Orlando never advanced out of the playoffs' first round in three tries and last year finished an embarrassing 21-61.
His comeback has sparked the team's turnaround.
His play did the same against the Lakers.
He scored eight points in the second quarter to lead the comeback. He hit two outside jumpers and drove to the basket at will. His best play came when he grabbed a rebound on the baseline, spun to the center of the court and hit a shot as he started falling to the ground.
Then Francis took over, scoring the final nine points in the half.
His 18-foot fadeaway jumper put the Magic ahead, 50-49, with about two minutes to play in the half.
"That guy was hot," said Lakers guard Chucky Atkins, who scored 21 points. "I was playing good defense. I had my hands up and in his face, but he made some tough shots."
The Lakers reclaimed the lead early in the third, but Orlando used a 13-0 run to pull away for good. The highlight of the run was a no-look pass from Hill to Hedo Turkoglu, who finished with 23 points.
"We had the game in our control," Atkins said. "We've got to go for the kill then."
Yeah TPark, Francis is such a ball hog, the selfish bas only dished out 9 assists and went inside the trees to grab at least 8 rebs for the 4th game this year. Do you know how hard it is for a 6'1" player to average 8.5 rebs???Do you know how much abuse you have to take to get in the middle of guys 6-9 inches taller than you, to out hussle them for rebounds night in night out??? Let me know when a Spur other than TD averages 8.5 rebs for 6 games.
Jim, Francis has been AWESOME. I'll be honest with you though. For some reason he seems happier to distribute the ball this season than he did last season, and I suspect it has to do with the fact that he found dumping the ball into a 7 foot Chinese guy boring. His current teammates are a little more dynamic. Plus, his passes this season go into the stat books, they usually don't with post entry passes. I think it's a little understandable. Really the only superstars I've seen work really well with big men were Magic, Bird, and this new kid named LeBron James.
BTW, I never got a response from you on the game last week (he he). Today we've got a HUGE one against Miami. Come to think of it, our next 3 games are brutal.
taruky, Francis was stifled with VanGundy, and he was not being utililized properly. It is not a coincidence that Steve is playing back up to his allstar calibre play now that he is in the right system. Hedo is playing well this year too.
Last edited by Jimcs50; 11-13-2004 at 10:26 AM.
It's amazing what Grant Hill can do for a team, and for Steve's maturity.
"Francis was stifled with VanGundy, and he was not being utililized properly"
Francis played stupid ball at HOU. Over-dribbling, shooting too much, just some really dumb plays, etc, etc. Including plenty of complaints of SF not getting the ball to Yao enough. Can't blame that on JVG. JVG and SF bad chemistry? yes, but that was due to both of them, not just SVG. The very impressive SF of this season is something I've not seen before.
It's funny how frequently Hedo has been said to need to start to be productive while he was here and now he's a frontrunner in the 6th man of the year award. I'm happy for him.
That is BS, you did not watch him play until last year, that is for sure look at his career stats and compare them to last year and you will see a definite down turn...that is not coincidence. Francis was an allstar with great assist to TO ratio, great rebounding, and a lot higher shooting % for most of his career with Rudy T. He came into the league as a great defender as well.
You do not play for Gary Williams at Maryland and not play great defense and rebound. VG did stifle him with his slow tempo, walk up the floor style which does not fit Francis' game at all. Look for TMac to struggle this year as well. Francis is always better when he is running, and as last year showed he did not know how to play in that role w/o dribbling and dribbling until he found a player to throw the ball to that was open.
Francis is in the same mold as Stephon Marbury, in that he needs a motion offense with an up tempo offense to be most effective.
first off Jim, get off Francis's nuts, its quite scary.
two, when Francis, once again, actually does something worth noting, like, hmm, winning a playoff series.
Or maybe, beating a team worth a .
Good day Francissucker.
he is playing better this year then in houston
he knows why he got traded
either houston's coach could not get thru steve's big head or he hated ming
TPark, unless I am mistaken, basketball is a team game, so I do not think Francis can win a series by himself, so that has nothing to do with whether or not Francis is a great player or not. BTW, they will win a series this year, bank on it. I also never heard an apology from you on the fact that I was right about Francis being a better rebounder than Rasho...eh numbnuts?
You always spout off w/o knowing the facts, just like in baseball this year when you said that the Sox had no chance to beat the Cardinals. I never heard a congrats or any conciliatory message from you on that either, which is typical of your sorry poor sportsmanship.
As for me being "on his nuts" as you say, that is just another example of your total ignorance and lack of understanding of a sports fan's loyalty to his school and his players. I guess if you were being told that Pujols was a so and so all the time, you would not try to counter argue and play devil's advocate, huh, sucker?
BTW, if anyone should worry about someone being gay or whatever in here, I would first look at someone your age who is not married and never has been, before I would look at a married man who obviously loves women, right?
Oh, I see Parker, your obvious object of your affections, had another great shooting game again....1-7....you are right, he is soooo much better than Francis, how did I not see it?
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