SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -Facing a fifth straight home loss, the injury-plagued Sacramento Kings responded by beating the NBA’s best road team.
John Salmons scored 21 points and Brad Miller had 20 to help the Kings hold off the Orlando Magic, 104-100 on Tuesday night.
The win snapped a rare four-game losing streak for the Kings at friendly Arco Arena. And it came against the Magic, who at 15-6 have the most road wins this season in the NBA.
“We know how good Orlando is on the road, they are one of the best in the league,” Salmons said. “Our last homestand (0-4) wasn’t good, so we needed this win.”
Despite the urgency, the Kings almost didn’t get it. They committed seven turnovers and were outscored 38-26 in the fourth quarter, when they squandered much of their once 19-point lead.
“It kind of took the fun out of me, you have to have success at the end of games,” Kings coach Reggie Theus said. “I look at it in many ways, good teams are always going to make a run. So they made a run and we held them off.”
Beno Udrih had 17 points, Quincy Douby scored 14, Francisco Garcia had 11 and Mikki Moore added eight points and 12 rebounds for the Kings, who had lost two straight and six of seven games.
Dwight Howard had 29 points and 15 rebounds, but also committed six turnovers for Orlando, which has lost three straight. Rashard Lewis made six 3-pointers and scored 22 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Hedo Turkoglu added 14 points and J.J. Redick had 10, all in the fourth quarter.
Turkoglu made a 3-pointer to pull Orlando within 103-100 with 19 seconds remaining. Seconds later, Garcia hit one of two free throws to put the Kings up by four points. Redick passed up a 3-pointer and Orlando never got off another shot.
A 7-0 run early in the fourth quarter put the Kings seemingly in charge at 88-69. But Orlando came right back with nine straight points against the suddenly mistake-prone Kings, who lead the NBA in turnovers.
“We were sluggish in the first half and didn’t play hard enough until the fourth quarter,” said Howard, who had eight fourth-quarter points. “They had it going and we didn’t. When a team has it going like them it is hard to get over.”
The Kings were undermanned once again, missing their top three scorers from last season in starters Ron Artest (elbow), Kevin Martin (groin) and Mike Bibby (thumb).
Yet stepping up again was Salmons, who has averaged nearly 20 points as a starter this season. Douby, a reserve guard who has struggled much of the season, had a second straight solid game, matching his season high, including 12 points in the first half when the Kings led by 15 points.
“The first half, that’s the joy of the game,” said Miller, who had six assists. “You get halves like that sometimes. And things were going well defensively, we held them to 38 points.”
It’s a challenging road trip for the Southeast Division-leading Magic, who play four times in five nights, concluding with a Saturday game in Utah.
“We’ve been coming out sluggish in the first half, our main three guys need to take more responsibility in that area,” Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said. “We are in a funk right now and need to figure it out.”
Quiet during the first half when he was outplayed by Howard, Miller scored 11 points in the third quarter, when the Kings built their lead to 78-62.
Udrih had 16 points in the first half, when the Kings took advantage of a sluggish Orlando defense for a 53-38 lead.
Notes: Dahntay Jones connected on his first 3-pointer of the season at the buzzer, giving the Kings a 26-18 first-quarter lead. Turkoglu, who was drafted by the Kings in 2000 and played his first three years in Sacramento, was cheered after missing a third-quarter dunk in traffic. Gary Gerould, who has been the voice of the Kings since they arrived in Sacramento in 1985, missed a rare game due to an illness.
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