Tag: Orlando Magic (Page 10 of 22)

      Magic hold off Lakers in Finals rematch, 96-94

      March 7, 2010 /

      I hesitate to call this a rematch, because it’s just a regular season game and there isn’t much on the line, but this one had a postseason feel to it and was quite chippy, especially in the second half.

      The Magic led by 10 heading into the fourth quarter, but the Lakers went on an 8-0 run to start the period and cut the lead to just two. The game was nip and tuck the rest of the way, but the Lakers never took the lead or even tied the game. After hitting a long two on the previous possession to cut the lead to one (and staring defiantly into the crowd), Kobe Bryant missed a game-tying jumper as time expired.

      After getting into several scraps with Bryant throughout the second half, Matt Barnes hit a huge three with 1:10 to play to push the lead to six. He and Kobe were pushing and shoving throughout the game, and at one point they were called for a double technical.

      I’ve always liked Barnes’ hard-nosed style, though he needs to do a better job of showing poise in certain situations. He’s sort of like Bruce Bowen, but a little crazy. After his first technical, there were a couple of points where the officials would have been totally justified in ejecting him from the game. He repeatedly walked right through Kobe in an effort to show that he’s not going to back down. Kobe went for 34-7-7, but he missed 18 of his 30 shots.

      Is this Magic team capable of making another postseason run? I think so, but I’m not a big fan of Vince Carter in crunch time. The Magic will be aided by the fact that Jameer Nelson has stayed healthy thus far — if you remember, he missed most of the playoffs last season and was a little rusty when he came back in the Finals. The Lakers don’t really have an answer for Nelson’s quickness.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      Magic give Cavs third straight loss

      February 21, 2010 /

      LeBron James posted 33 points, nine rebounds and six assists, and Antawn Jamison bounced back from a dreadful Cav debut with a nice 19-point, eight-rebound effort, but the Magic supporting cast came up big in the fourth quarter to give Orlando a 101-95 win.

      Jameer Nelson (18-4-5) and Vince Carter (11-1-3) hit several big shots in the final period, and Rashard Lewis (15-4-2) hit a corner three that sealed the win for the Magic. Dwight Howard (22-16, 4 blks) did his usual damage early on, but Orlando went away from him in the fourth quarter, using a series of Nelson-Carter pick-and-rolls to free Carter up on the block.

      Shaq (20-5, 2 blks) had a nice game and was seemingly energized by his feud with Howard about who deserves to have the nickname “Superman.” But with both big men such poor foul shooters, neither team threw the ball inside much in the fourth quarter.

      Jamison proved his worth with a nine-point spurt to start the third quarter that gave the Cavs the lead. He’s going to be fine in Cleveland’s offense once he gets comfortable. He’s a tough cover for most power forwards, but as Jeff Van Gundy noted, he’s not nearly as tough to defend when he’s playing small forward. (The same goes for Rashard Lewis, who is far more productive at PF.)

      LeBron, coming off of back-to-back losses, seemed especially grumpy today, and was complaining just about every time he took the ball to the hoop and didn’t get the call. I think he has entered what I call the “Kobe Zone,” the convergence of talent and ego where a player thinks he can’t be stopped without a foul, so every failed drive to the basket finishes with some signal to the officials that they missed the call. LeBron took the ball into Dwight Howard twice — once in the first half and once in the fourth quarter — and both times he lit into the refs. On the first play, Howard was planted in the middle of the lane and LeBron clipped him as he went by, and it was a good no-call. The fourth quarter no-call consisted of LeBron taking it directly into Howard’s body and raised arms as Howard retreated towards the basket. The ball got knocked out of bounds and LeBron made his sour pickle face and screamed at the refs.

      But if the Cavs want an answer for what went wrong today, they need to look at their backcourt. Mo Williams (1-9), Anthony Parker (1-4) and Delonte West (2-9) combined to go 4-22 (18%) from the field, and that’s not going to get it done.

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      Why doesn’t Dwight Howard get more touches?

      February 16, 2010 /

      As part of his annual trade value column, Simmons ranks the top 40 players in terms of total value. Here’s his take on Dwight Howard:

      2. Dwight Howard
      Fact: Howard has played every game this season.

      Fact: A whopping 75 players have attempted more field goals than he has, including Jason Thompson, John Salmons, Danilo Gallinari, Luis Scola, Carl Landry, Raymond Felton, Andrew Bynum, Jamal Crawford and Kenyon Martin.

      Fact: He’s 109th in the league in field goal attempts per game, tied with Ryan Gomes at 9.6. Ryan Gomes!

      Fact: Teammates Vince Carter (14.9), Rashard Lewis (11.9) and Jameer Nelson (10.3) all average more field goals attempts than he does.

      Fact: He leads the league in free throw attempts (10.4 per game), so realistically, that means Howard is getting about 14-15 scoring touches per game. Not even four a quarter.

      My take: He’s too nice of a guy. It’s both the best and worst thing about him. If you ever played basketball, you know there’s one rule with big guys: Make sure they touch the ball enough. If they don’t get enough touches, they get cranky. They stop running the floor. They stop setting good picks. They stop crashing the boards. Big guys are like women — they need affection, they need to be stroked every so often, and if you ignore them, they start to resent you.

      In Howard’s case, nobody in Orlando has to worry about keeping him happy. He’s always happy! He’s a good soldier. In a roundabout way, he’s avoiding the responsibility of carrying an offense every night. This is easier. He gets to run around, jump over guys, ram some dunks home, block some shots, flex his muscles, smile to the crowd and concentrate on his strengths. Of course, he will never, ever, ever get better this way, and if you look closely at his stats these past three years, he is what he is: 18-19 points, 13-14 rebounds, 3 blocks, 60 percent shooting. Alpha dog pedigree, sidekick mindset. Too bad.

      As a point of reference, let’s look at Shaquille O’Neal, who is/was similar in playing style (power post-up game) and handicap (FT shooting). In 10 consecutive seasons from 1993 to 2003, O’Neal never averaged fewer than 18.1 field goal attempts or 9.5 free throw attempts. Over that span, his usage percentage — the percentage of his team’s possessions that the player used while on the floor — vacillated between 31 and 32 percent.

      Conversely, Howard has never attempted more than 12.4 shots in a season, and his usage percentage peaked at 26.1% last season. In short, Howard isn’t getting nearly enough touches, and Simmons’ theory about how his innate happiness is limiting his touches is completely valid.

      It’s partly up to Stan Van Gundy to fix this. Howard has by far the highest effective FG% on the team (60.1%), so he should be the Magic’s #1 offensive option. Period. Van Gundy has some control over this.

      When Howard was asked about his “feud” with Shaq over the “Superman” moniker, he said that he was just trying to get where Shaq is at in his career. If he truly wants to have a comparable career, he has to demand the ball. When Shaq wasn’t getting his touches, he let Kobe know. Howard has to do the same with Nelson, Carter and Lewis.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      Rashard Lewis refuses to enter game

      December 11, 2009 /

      Per the Orlando Sentinel…

      Controversy brewed during the Orlando Magic’s 120-111 loss to the Utah Jazz on Thursday night when power forward Rashard Lewis said he declined to go back in the game during the second quarter.

      Coach Stan Van Gundy was upset and said he had never had a player overrule him.

      “(Lewis) didn’t want to go back in. I wanted to put him back in with six minutes to go in the second quarter and he didn’t want to go back in,” Van Gundy said after the Magic (17-5) had their six-game winning streak broken. “He said it was because he had two fouls, and so if you have a guy who doesn’t want to play, I’m not going to get in an argument and put him back in if he doesn’t want to play at that time.

      He said, `I’m going to back in and be out in three or four minutes and Ryan (Andersonn) is playing good.’

      “I didn’t have time to get into it. It’s rare and I’ve never had that in the first half of a game. I was a little baffled by it.”

      Lewis confirmed the story, but said that he wasn’t being defiant. He already had two fouls and he thought that his replacement, Ryan Anderson, was playing really well.

      However…

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