The Miami Heat made certain that the Orlando Magic had no shot.
Smothering defense helped Miami build a 25-point first-quarter lead Thursday night, and Orlando tied an NBA record for fewest points in a playoff game by losing 99-64.Miami earned its most lopsided victory of the season in the first playoff game between Florida's two NBA teams. The Magic missed 15 consecutive shots during one stretch and hit a season-low 30.6 percent.
"In the middle of the second quarter, they were ready to give up," Miami forward P.J. Brown said. "You see the shoulders drop, the heads shaking, confusion on their faces, and they're looking at the bench like, `We don't have a solution."'
With a 35-10 advantage, the Heat held the second-largest lead after one quarter in league playoff history. Milwaukee led Philadelphia 40-14 in 1970.
"It feels good, but we only won one game," Miami's Alonzo Mourning told reporters. "You want us to jump up and down? We'll let y'all party. We've got plenty of time to do that later."
The Magic have never won a playoff series after losing the first game. Game 2 will be Sunday in Miami.
"Hopefully we've got the heart to bounce back after a loss like this," Magic coach Richie Adubato said. "They beat us in every aspect of the game, no doubt about it."
Voshon Lenard, playing in his first playoff game, outscored Orlando 11-10 in the first period and finished with 24 points, including six 3-pointers.
"Tonight was Vo's night," Mourning said. "You leave him open, and he's going to burn you. You leave anybody on our team open, and they're going to burn you."
Mourning had 12 points, 11 rebounds and six blocked shots. Tim Hardaway added 13 points and 11 assists.
The Magic, meanwhile, missed 59 of 85 shots.
"We did a good job sticking with them defensively," Lenard said. "They have guys who can shoot from downtown, and we wanted to eliminate that."
Four players took turns guarding Orlando's Penny Hardaway, who was 6-for-16 and scored 13 points. Teammate Derek Strong had 15 points.
The Magic's Rony Seikaly missed his first 10 shots and finished with seven points. The crowd jeered the former Heat center with chants of "Ro-ny, Ro-ny."
"It's like there was a lid on the basket," Seikaly said. "The harder we tried to get a shot to go in, the worse it got."
The Heat won the Atlantic Division and a franchise-record 61 games during the regular season, and they played like the series favorites from the start. A noisy sellout crowd roared as the Heat broke the game open with defense and outside shooting, a combination that worked for them most of the season.
Miami took leads of 4-0, 9-2 and 21-8, then outscored the Magic 14-1 at the end of the first quarter. The margin reached 38-10 before Gerald Wilkins scored to end a drought of nine minutes without a basket for Orlando.