| 15 August 2010
The Amway Center is set to open its doors to basketball on October 10 for a preseason game between the Magic and the Hornets. The regular season starts October 28 as Orlando takes on Washington. With the countdown on to the premier of the Magic's new building, I thought it would be good to give Orlando Arena a proper send-off and recount some of the best memories from our old home.
We are t-minus 74 days until regular season basketball in the Amway Center!
There is no better place to go from Orlando's first win at the Orlando Arena to the first Finals win.
By the the Magic reached the 2009 NBA Finals, Orlando Arena was already singing its swan song. The Amway Center was rising from the ground very quickly and was wishing the Magic luck as it looked out on I-4. Orlando surprised the league by upsetting heavily favored Cleveland and found itself back in the Finals.
Los Angeles seemed to overwhelm Orlando in Game One. The Lakers were about to do the same in Game Two, but the Magic held tough and were an incredible missed alley-oop away from tying the series up heading to Orlando. Even though the Lakers went on to win Game Two in overtime, everyone knew it was a new series.
The Magic showed a series does not start until the road team wins a game. They blew the doors open and rocked the O-Rena like no other game before in the building. Orlando walked all over (in Mickael Pietrus' case, literally) Los Angeles and demanded everyone's attention. The final score was 108-104.
But like the Pistons game, the score did not matter. The feeling of winning that first Finals game made anything seem possible. Maybe the Magic could actually win this thing? Remember that feeling?
It is pretty hard to remember after Orlando fell apart at the end of Game Four and then was pressing for a victory to extend the series in Game Five.
Sure there were problems in that game. Orlando set a Finals record for field goal percentage and still had to fight and claw its way to a win.
But that is not what we remember. We remember Gina Marie Incandela's rousing rendition of the "Star-Spangled Bannger." We remember Dwight Howard finally breaking free from the clutches of Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum for 21 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks. We remember Hedo Turkoglu's near triple double and the blistering 63.6 percent shooting Orlando put up that night.
More importantly, we remember that feeling of finally winning a Finals game. The memory of realizing and believing a championship was there for the taking. This win put the 2009 Magic firmly atop the the pedestal as one of the greatest teams in franchise history. And the Finals win is one of the most cherished memories in the team's history.
We will be reminiscing about Orlando Arena for the rest of the summer. Have a memory you would like remembered? Tweet us with your memories @OMagicDaily, comment to this article or contact us through the Web site.
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