Howard, Magic unable to redeem themselves

During the Game 5 pregame festivities Sunday, there was a montage of the Orlando Magic’s playoff run playing on the scoreboard above the Amway Arena court.

Included were all of Orlando’s moments of triumph and survival on its way to the NBA Finals, set to the backdrop of Van Halen’s classic rally track “Right Now.”

It was a fitting song choice. It was also the theme of Magic center Dwight Howard’s motivational speech to his teammates during a team meeting the day after a heartbreaking overtime Game 4 loss that put Orlando in a 3-1 series hole and on the brink of watching its championship dreams end.

After missing two late free throws that could have secured the win in regulation and tied the series at 2-2, a lot of fingers were pointed at Howard. The criticism came despite a night that had been one of his most memorable of the Finals with 16 points, 21 rebounds and nine blocks.

“I was thinking about that all day,” Howard said. “[It was] the last shoot-around in Orlando. Last game of the year. . . . I just need to go out and have fun . . . and do what people said we couldn’t do.”

Faced with a Finals’ hole that no team had ever crawled out of, Howard went into his last game of the season at Amway on Sunday hopeful that both he and his team could find redemption.

The sentiment was clearly there; the basketball wasn’t. Howard struggled with foul trouble and never got going as the Lakers claimed their 15th NBA title, 99-86.

“They made a run and instead of playing like we did all season, we kind of put our heads down,” Howard said of the Lakers’ 16-0 stretch in the first half.

“I thought our guys fought hard,” Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy said. “I did not think that we handled the frustration really well, and that’s why I think one mistake, one bad play in that stretch kept leading to another.”

Howard got off only one shot and no free throws in the third quarter before going to the bench with 3:39 left with four fouls. He came back in at the 2:39 mark, but almost immediately picked up his fifth foul with 1:14 to play in the period.

Howard came back with 9:22 left in the fourth and made it to the end of the game, but his double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds was hardly of the caliber that has been his calling card this season.

Despite the outcome, Howard said there was a lot to take away from the Magic’s run.

“It’s good to be in the Finals, but for a basketball player there’s really no difference except the stakes are higher,” he said. “Were they the better team in this series? Yes, that’s why they’re the champs. . . . There’s little lessons from this series and the season. We gave a good effort. . . . So for that there’s no reason to hang our heads.”

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khightower @orlandosentinel.com