Sonics lack luck
ORLANDO, Fla. – At this point in the season, the Orlando Magic will take lucky over good.
Hedo Turkoglu scored 18 points, including a fallaway 20-footer with 0.4 seconds left, to lift the Orlando Magic to an 88-87 victory over the Seattle SuperSonics on Wednesday night.
“That was a lucky shot,” said Turkoglu, who was falling out of bounds with Rashard Lewis draped all over him. “We should have won that game easily, but we were trying to do some fancy stuff and blew the lead. We were lucky.”
Jameer Nelson added 18 points and Grant Hill had 12 as the Magic won their second straight game.
Ray Allen led Seattle with 21 points and Lewis had 16 as the Sonics dropped to 1-4.
“I feel frustrated and a little bit snake bitten,” Sonics coach Bob Hill said. “We did everything right just like we’re supposed to, except (Turkoglu) made the shot. We’re going to win one sooner or later. We just have to keep playing.”
Seattle had rallied from an 86-77 deficit in the final 3 minutes to take an 87-86 lead on a layup by Lewis with 5.7 seconds left in the game.
Turkoglu, however, took an inbounds pass from Hill and drilled the game-winner over Lewis from the corner just before time expired.
That stopped a nightmarish 3-minute stretch by Orlando during which the Magic turned the ball over four times and missed their only field goal attempt.
Lewis scored five points, Allen hit a 3-pointer and Chris Wilcox added a layup as Seattle ran off 10 straight points.
The Magic hit their first six shots to jump out to a 13-0 lead in the first 3 minutes against the Sonics, who lost in Miami on Tuesday.
Nick Collison’s three-point play put the Sonics ahead for the first time, 28-27 with 8:53 left in the second period. Seattle pushed the lead to 47-42 at halftime, scoring 20 points off Orlando’s 12 first-half turnovers.
The Magic, who lead the NBA in turnovers, had 27 against Seattle, including 10 in the fourth quarter.
“The turnover thing is starting to get to me now,” Magic coach Brian Hill said. “You turn it over 27 times and you’re going to keep everyone in the game. We have to find a way to get out of it.”
A 3-pointer by Allen gave Seattle its biggest lead of the game, 59-47 with 7:04 left in the third quarter.
Nelson started the Magic comeback with a running 10-footer, two of his 12 points in the period. Orlando outscored Seattle 20-8 the rest of the quarter to tie it at 67.
Seattle hit only two of its first 11 shots in the fourth quarter and turned the ball over four times.
“There are a lot of ways you can win and a lot of ways you can lose and I think we’ve experienced them all,” Allen said. “It’s painful to lose games like that, but we’ll get right back up and get on the horse again.”
Turkoglu’s 3-pointer capped an 11-2 run that gave Orlando an 82-73 lead with 5:42 left in the game. A layup by Turkoglu made it 86-77 with 3:40 left.
Notes
Lewis had scored 20 or more points in Seattle’s first four games. … Seattle is shooting a league-best 85.4 percent on free throws … Sonics opponents are averaging a league-high 36 free throws a game.