The Magic started their West Coast swing last night in L.A. against the Clippers and got out with a 95-88 victory. It was a nice win in the sense that the Magic started and finished strong. They closed out the game with a 29-13 fourth quarter where they trailed by 9 to start and won by 7. That showed a nice finish the Magic have not always had, especially on the road. Dwight Howard led the charge with another 20/20 game and finished with a 23/22 line. Rashard Lewis had 18 and Jameer Nelson chipped in with 15 in another quality game. Nelson has shown marked improvement this year and should be getting more credit than he has received so far. Third Quarter Collapse came to his defense yesterday and did a nice job in pointing out how much he’s improved on paper. Nelson was criticized by 3shadesofblue where they stated “Just think about how good they would be if they had a real, live point guard on the roster.” I wouldn’t say that they couldn’t upgrade the point guard position, but to dismiss Jameer Nelson as if he’s not doing anything to help this team is just stupid. They obviously haven’t seen much of him this year and are judging him strictly on his past. Back to the game now, Lewis and Turk still haven’t got their shooting touches back yet going 9 of 17 combined and if these guys can still win with these guys shooting this way, it should be interesting to see how things go when they get their strokes back. Courtney Lee had a nice effort off the bench with 8 points and played some solid defense in the process. They Magic head to Portland tonight and it should be interesting to see how well they can play on back to back nights out west.

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