Turnovers haunt Magic as they fall to Dallas Mavericks at home

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Orlando Magic

Arron Afflalo posted 25 points, Nikola Vucevic had 16 and Maurice Harkless scored 12 in Orlando’s loss to Dallas on Saturday.

Early turnovers come back to haunt the Orlando Magic as they fell to the Dallas Mavericks Saturday night at the home.

“The turnovers kind of got us behind a little bit, especially in the first half. We gave up 59 points and a lot of those were off turnovers,” said Magic head coach Jacque Vaughn following the teams 100-108 lost. “We dug our selves a little hole with the turnovers.”

Monta Ellis scored 19 points and dished out 8 assist to help the Mavericks defeat the Magic for the eight straight time in Orlando. Dirk Nowitzki and DeJuan Blair also contributed 18 points for Dallas.

The Mavericks (6-4) forced 19 Magic (4-6) turnovers which lead to 22 points — 10 of those turnovers coming in the first half alone.

“We wanted to be aggressive tonight. We were aggressive in our coverage of (Victor) Oladipo because we have a lot of respect for him,” said Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle.

Oladpio coughed up nine-turnovers in the teams lost, four coming at crucial moments in the fourth quarter.

“It was a real close game and I have to learn to execute in those times, ” said Oldapio who also contributed for 10 points, six-assist and four rebounds. “Most of it is really on me as a point guard. The point guard has to be a leader out there so I got to do a better job.”

Despite trailing by double digits for most of the game, the Magic managed to trim down Dallas’ 15 point lead to four in the fourth quarter, holding the Mavericks scoreless for more than six-minutes. Arron Affalo lead the charge for Orlando scoring a game high 25 points, shooting 13-14 from the charity strike. Nikola Vucevic had 16 points and eight rebounds and Jameer Nelson added 15.

Despite Nelson’s performance, he did not play the entire fourth quarter per coach’s decision.

“At the time we were playing small and it gave us a chance to keep Vic (Oladipo) in the game,” said Vaughn who also added Nelson is not hurt.

It has been rumored that the Magic have placed the veteran guard on the trading block and is shopping him around to different teams. Following the game Nelson refused to take questions from the media and yelled out “I’m sorry, I will talk to y’all on Monday” as he stormed out.

The Magic get back to practice on Monday and will face the Miami Heat (7-3) on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at home.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Amway Center.