Magic’s late rally puts away Rockets

The Magic threw about everything they had at Houston’s James Harden and the strategy worked. Barely.

Orlando rallied in the fourth quarter to squeeze out a 116-109 win over visiting Houston on Sunday behind 22 points apiece from Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon, and 17 points from Evan Fournier.

The Magic outscored Harden and Houston 14-4 in the final four minutes of the game to win their second straight.

“That was exhausting,” said Fournier, who spent most of the game chasing Harden around pick-and-rolls. “The guy is terrific. I thought overall, we did a pretty good job, but the guy still had 38.”

Harden scored 38 points to push his run of 30-point games to 16, but at a high price. Harden was 1-for-17 on 3-point attempts. He did get fouled three times from beyond the arc and was 9-for-9 from the free-throw line on those occasions (15for-16 overall), but it was not enough to give the Rockets a comfortable edge.

Houston led much of the game and was up 105-98 after Harden made two foul shots with 4:34 left.

From there, however, he was 1-for-5 from the field, including three misses on step-back 3pointers. His teammates were 0-for-3 during that span.