LeBron Drops 51 As Heat Beat Magic

There is one universal truth that Orlando Magic general manager Otis Smith must come to realize. And that is, don't make LeBron James angry. Otis Smith wouldn't like him when he's angry. During the off-season, Smith smugly questioned LeBron's competitiveness after King James decided to sign with Miami. And clearly,...

By Chris Joseph

February 3, 2011

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There is one universal truth that Orlando Magic general manager Otis Smith must come to realize. And that is, don't make LeBron James angry. Otis Smith wouldn't like him when he's angry. During the off-season, Smith smugly questioned LeBron's competitiveness after King James decided to sign with Miami. And clearly, Smith is now learning the hard lesson that talking shit about LeBron is up there with New Coke and George Clooney's batnipples in the pantheon of bad ideas. Dwight Howard is also learning this lesson (the LeBron angry one, not Clooney's batnipples).

LeBron James led the Heat to a 104-100 victory over the Magic with a ball obliterating 51 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists. Even Wilt Chamberlain looks at that stat line and is like, oh shit! And that dude scored 100 in a game, and bedded thousands of women.

It's always a hoot watching the Heat play the Magic, if just to watch Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy waddle down the court exasperated, or the way his face progressively disappears into his neck as the game gets tougher. And with LeBron starting things off by hitting his first eleven shots, and scoring 23 points in the first quarter, Van Gundy quickly took on the incredulous look of a man whose son just told him he wants to sing show tunes for a living. Always a delight to behold!

Orlando was thin in their front line, and was missing Brandon Bass. But the way James was shooting the basketball, it's pretty clear Bass would have made little, if any, difference, unless he strapped a flamethrower on before tip-off. And even then, it would've been nearly impossible to stop the Number Six Express To Awesometown. 51 points off 25 shots? Redunkulous!

The Heat led by as many as 20 points in the fourth before the Magic started chucking threes like the ball was on fire. Miami's lead was cut down to six. That is until LeBron punched the Orlando rally in the dick with a 3-pointer of his own that brought the score to 97-88 with 1:29 left.

The final score doesn't truly indicate the Heat's dominance throughout. Orlando managed to bring it to within three in the final seconds because their entire game is built around chucking treys up at all times during a game. Shoot roughly 1,874 three-pointers, and a few are bound to drop sooner or later.

Of note was Dwyane Wade taking a hard foul from Dwight Howard that forced D-Wade to leave for the locker room to get checked out. The diagnosis was a back contusion (translation: BRUISED ASS!). But Wade was able to return to contribute 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting. Remember when Wade used to get hurt and he'd go to the locker room and we'd all be like, ah shit... there goes the game? Man those days blew.

So now the Heat hold a firm four game lead over Orlando in the Southeast and remain 2 ½ behind Boston for the best record in the East. But it's probably best to let LeBron and D-Wade sum up the win.

Fellas?

Right on!

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