Orlando rode a strong first half performance to an 18-point halftime lead, and held off the Cavs’ late charge to win Game 6 (103-90) and clinch a date with the Lakers in the Finals.

Dwight Howard had arguably his best game of the series, posting 40 points (14-21 from the field, 12-16 from the free throw line), 14 rebounds and four assists. The Magic overcame substandard shooting from Hedo Turkoglu (3-12, 10 points) with fine play from Rashard Lewis (6-13, 18 points) and Mickael Pietrus (5-10, 14 points).

For the Cavs, Game 6 was more about their failure to have an answer for Howard than it was about getting poor play from LeBron’s sidekicks. Delonte West (9-19, 22 points) and Mo Williams (6-12, 17 points) both played pretty well and shot a combined 5 of 7 from long range. Anderson Varejao (7-12, 14 points) also had a solid game. However, the rest of the Cavs shot a combined 5 for 17 (29%) for 12 points.

James had 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and shot just 40% from the field. Most players would be reasonably happy with a night like that, but the Cavs needed more from LeBron in an elimination game on the road. Still, he averaged 41.2 points (on 50% shooting), 8.6 rebounds and 8.2 assists in the series, so it’s hard to fault his play.

Looking ahead, the Lakers match up pretty well with the Magic in that they have a couple of big men in Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol that will try to slow down Howard. Bynum in particular needs to play well and it’s not clear that his stamina is strong enough to play a ton of minutes. Gasol isn’t strong enough to handle Howard one-on-one, so when Bynum is on the bench, the Lakers will probably have to throw some double-teams at Orlando’s big man. Meanwhile, Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus will be asked to watch Kobe. If they can slow him down and the Magic continue to hit their threes, they’ll have a good shot to upset the Lakers.

Check back later in the day for a complete breakdown of the challenges that the Cavs face over the next year or so as they try to pick up the pieces and re-sign LeBron.

Brian Windhorst of Cleveland.com…

What you have here is a team playing at its peak playing against a team on its heels. It is a rather classic situation. The Magic are not a team of destiny, they are a loaded team hitting on all cylinders. It is rather impressive you have to admit. The Cavs were going to have their hands full beating the Magic just playing to their season averages. Playing the way they are now, it isn’t happening. Remember that 4-1 Pistons series victory over the favored Lakers in the 2004 Finals. When Kobe Bryant hit a miracle shot to win Game 2? That is what this feels like watching.

Michael White of the Magic Basketblog.

MJ himself could not win a title with the stiffs LeBron is carrying.

The Cavs might come back and win this series, but how in the world have they gotten this far with such a laughable supporting cast?

Imagine if Van Halen was just Eddie and 3 Michael Anthonys? You might still get “Eruption,” but you’d never hear anything close to “Hot for Teacher.”

The refs are better friends to him than the schlubs who share his uniform.

Think about the players Jordan, Bird and Magic ran with. DJ. James Worthy. Pippen. McHale. Even Horace Grant. If James had just one player of that caliber, he’d probably already have a ring and be working on another.

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Despite some poor play down the stretch in regulation, the Magic survived another test from the Cavs, winning Game 4, 116-114, in overtime.

The Magic had a six-point lead with 4:18 to go in the fourth quarter before this series of possessions:

3:28 Hedo Turkoglu misses 13-foot jumper
3:15 Rafer Alston misses 25-foot three point jumper
2:55 Hedo Turkoglu traveling
2:29 Rafer Alston bad pass (Anderson Varejao steals)
2:03 Mickael Pietrus misses 24-foot three point jumper
1:43 Dwight Howard misses free throw 1 of 2
1:43 Dwight Howard makes free throw 2 of 2
1:10 Rafer Alston misses 24-foot three point jumper
0:45 Hedo Turkoglu misses 25-foot three point jumper
0:07 Mickael Pietrus misses 24-foot three point jumper

So in those nine possessions, the Magic scored one point (Howard’s free throw) on 0-6 shooting from the field and two turnovers. They found themselves trailing by a point with four seconds to play. Then Rashard Lewis hit a very difficult three pointer to give the Magic a two-point lead. It’s quite tough for a right-handed player to square up on his right foot and make a long shot like he did. On the Cavs next possession, LeBron took the ball to the hole and got the call when he collided with Mickael Pietrus in the lane. He hit both free throws to force overtime.

In the extra period, it was the Dwight Howard show. He posted 10 points, including two clutch free throws with 0:21 to play to give the Magic a four-point lead. On the Cavs’ next possession, he had an amazing block on LeBron’s drive to the rim. The extra period was a defining moment for Orlando’s big man.

With the Cavs trailing 3-1, it’s looking like there’s a good chance that we won’t see that Lakers/Cavs matchup that everyone was expecting. Howard and Co. have used this supposed inevitability as motivation and they now have a great shot at making the Finals.

For Cleveland, LeBron isn’t getting much help. If you remove his field goal attempts from the equation, the rest of the Cavs have made 90 of 220 shots (41%) in the series, and that’s poor accuracy given how much attention the defense is paying to the Cavs’ superstar. Mo Williams is averaging 17.3 points per game in the series, but he’s not scoring efficiently. He went 5 of 15 from the field in Game 4, which puts him at just over 32% for the series. That’s not going to get it done.

The Cavs have two of the last three games at home. If they can get a win in Game 5, the pressure is back on the Magic, who will treat Game 6 like it’s a Game 7 — they won’t want to go back to Cleveland. The series definitely isn’t over, but the fat lady is stage right warming up those vocal cords.

Down 2-1 with Game 4 in Orlando tonight, Mo Williams is still confident that the Cavs are going to advance to the Finals. He’s so confident that he’s not afraid to give the Magic some bulletin board material in case they need a little extra motivation.

“Guarantee we’re going to win the series? Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We are down 2-1. But there is nobody on this team and definitely not myself that says we are not going to win this series. Yeah, it is going to be tough. We know that. We get this game tomorrow, go home, still got home-court advantage.

“We don’t see ourselves losing two out of three at home.”

There’s a difference between being guaranteeing a series win and being confident that you can pull it off. Once Williams used the word “guarantee,” he took his confidence to another level — one that might ultimately fire up the Magic and hurt Cleveland’s chances.

Without LeBron’s amazing shot in Game 2, the Cavs would be facing elimination tonight. They have been thoroughly outplayed and simply don’t match up very well with the Magic. Williams’ statement that the Cavs are the “best team in basketball” sounds hollow right now, especially from a guy who is shooting 32% from the field in the series. He really needs to play well tonight to help his team (and to back up these words).

The so-called “shot that saved Cleveland” didn’t seem to affect the Magic in Game 3. The heartbreaking Game 2 loss would have sent most teams into a tailspin, but Orlando has been resilient all season long, and like any championship-caliber team, the Magic look forward not backward.

Game 3 was the most physical of the series thus far. The officials called 58 fouls and the teams shot a combined 86 free throws. Dwight Howard shot 19 of the Magic’s 51 attempts, and made 14. That’s a 74% clip for a guy who shot 59% on the season.

Free throws also had an impact on the Cavs. LeBron James made 18 of 24 attempts (75%), but missed five attempts in a six-minute stretch in the fourth quarter that, had he made them all, would have had his team trailing by one instead of six with two minutes to play. Even the most diehard Cleveland fan would admit that LeBron was getting to the line more than he ought to be in the final quarter. He got just about every call when he went to the hole, drawing a questionable blocking foul on Mickael Pietrus, and drew a foul on the retreating Howard at the rim. Then Howard fouled out after cleanly blocking LeBron’s three-point attempt with 0:36 to play. In short, LeBron is getting Jordan-esque treatment from the refs, even on the road.

He posted 41 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, two steals and an amazing block, but shot just 1 of 8 from three-point range. The Magic’s plan is to encourage LeBron to shoot the long ball. If he happens to get hot, then they’ll just have to live with it. The Cavs didn’t have much else going offensively. Mo Williams scored 15 points on 5 of 16 shooting and Delonte West pitched in with 12 points. The rest of the Cavs combined for 21 of the team’s 89 points.

The Magic had a more balanced attack with five players in double figures, led by Howard’s 24 points.

With the loss, the Cavs find themselves in a hole once again. They do not want to go down 3-1 in the series, so while Game 4 isn’t quite a “must-win,” it’s damn close.

In his latest PER Diem, John Hollinger thinks that the Cavs should think about going small.

Thus, the Cavs must go back to the drawing board, and it’s time for them to unearth the one tactic we didn’t see Wednesday night: going small.

This may be the only way for the Cavs to survive. It’s easier to double Howard with quicker, faster players, while James can slide up to the 4 and lock up Lewis. The Cavs haven’t used that plan much this postseason, but it may be the only way they can guard the Magic in this series. Such a lineup might require them to play Sasha Pavlovic, because Wally Szczerbiak can’t guard Pietrus, and that’s a terrifying thought. But anything would be preferable to the way they’ve been chewed up during the teams’ first four meetings.

I know the Cavs like the idea of allowing James to roam by having him defend Alston, but he’s the only player on the team qualified to check Lewis. I’m a huge fan of Anderson Varejao’s defensive expertise, but this is a bad matchup for him. He isn’t used to defending the 3-point line and had trouble getting back to Lewis on the pick-and-pop plays on which Orlando devoured the Cavs during the second half. And if Varejao guards Howard instead, he may be able to flop himself into a few offensive-foul calls — which is vital, because putting Howard on the bench is about the only way Cleveland can stop him.

I guess it’s worth a try. Having Zydrunas Ilgauskas cover Dwight Howard one-on-one did not work. Going small would allow the Cavs to double Howard more quickly with smaller players and the theory is that he’d give the ball up. The problem is that the Cavs would be replacing one of their better players (Ilgauskas or Varejao) with one of their…um…more questionable players (Szczerbiak, Pavlovic). This also means that Joe Smith would see fewer minutes in favor of Szcerbiak or Pavlovic and that’s not a good thing.

In a great back-and-forth second half, the Magic finally upended the Cavs, 107-106.

The Cavs jumped out early but the Magic settled down in the second quarter and kept the game reasonably close. They would have been down by 12 at halftime if not for a three-quarter-court heave by Mo Williams that put the Cavs up 15.

One thing that jumped out at me is the way that the Cavs matched up at the beginning of the game. They put Delonte West on Hedo Turkoglu, Mo Williams on Courtney Lee and LeBron on Rafer Alston. As good of defense as LeBron has played this season, the Cavs actually think West is their best perimeter defender. He’s smaller than Turkoglu, but that doesn’t really matter because Turkoglu doesn’t post up. West can hug him on the perimeter and contest his jumper and use his quickness to keep him from getting to the hole. Meanwhile, it’s highly unlikely that LeBron will get into foul trouble covering Alston.

Conversely, Stan Van Gundy should really think about switching his front court matchups by putting Howard on Anderson Varejao and Rashard Lewis on the more perimeter-oriented Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Lewis would be at a size disadvantage, but it would allow Howard to stay closer to the rim since Varejao doesn’t spend a lot of time on the perimeter.

For much of the first half, Dwight Howard couldn’t catch a break inside. The refs were letting the Cleveland bigs abuse him, but called him for a couple of ticky-tack offensive fouls, which kept him in foul trouble throughout the first half. If the refs are going to let defenders hack away, then they better let Howard use his strength when he has the ball.

The Magic proved during the Boston series that they are a resilient team. They are not easily rattled and they don’t get down on each other when things aren’t going well. Orlando went into Dwight Howard repeatedly in the third quarter and cut the Cleveland lead to four at the end of the quarter.

The final period was nip tuck the whole way. LeBron fouled Howard out of the game (undeservedly, I might add, as Howard jumped straight up) on a three point play that put the Cavs up two with 0:25 to play and then Lewis hit a huge three to put the Magic up one with 0:14 remaining. The Magic doubled LeBron right away and he gave the ball up. The possession ended with a missed corner three by West, a jump ball and then a Mo Williams attempt off the jump ball that was thisclose to going in.

The Magic continued to fight and took advantage of a Cleveland team that seemingly put it into cruise control at halftime. The Cavs tried to turn it on again in the fourth quarter but Orlando made enough plays to steal Game 1. LeBron finished with 49 points, eight assists, six rebounds, three blocks and two steals. Mo Williams chipped in with 17 points. Howard had 30 points and 13 boards before fouling out. Rashard Lewis went 9 of 13 from the field (including several clutch shots down the stretch) for 22 points and Hedo Turkoglu scored 15 points while dishing out 14 assists. The Cavs bench was thoroughly outplayed; they were outscored 25-5.

If tonight is any evidence, this is going to be an interesting series.