Hot-shooting Magic win third in row
The Magic continued their dominance over ATL at home with a 108-101 win. This was their 3rd win in a row and 7th win out of the last 10. This was also the Magic's 5th game in a row scoring over 100 points, and 4th in row shooting at least 50%. The Magic improve to 27-43 and all of a sudden have pulled to within 5 1/2 games of PHI and the eighth spot with 12 games remaining.
Six players scored in double figures for the Magic, including four of the five starters. HTurkoglu led the way with 23 pts on 8 of 12 shooting. DHoward and JNelson each scored 15. Dwight included 13 boards. KDooling and Darko each had good games off the bench with 13 pts each, and DStevenson added 12 pts. Al Harrington led ATL with 20 pts, and Joe Johnson, who burned the Magic for 40 last week, scored just 19 on 7 of 22 shooting. Josh Childress added 18 pts off the bench, and ZaZa had another good game against his ex-team with 16 pts 12 rebs.
The Magic continue their torrid shooting, shooting 59.7% on their FGs. They outscored ATL from the field 89-75, as the Hawks shot just 40%. ATL outscored the Magic 26-19 from the FT line on 76.5% FT shooting. ORL shot 76% from the line. The Magic did not do well rebounding, as they were dominated on the offensive boards by ATL 23-10 and 41-37 overall. The Magic had a slightly better assist-to-turnover ratio of 23-14, compared to 19-13 for ATL. The Magic bench outscored the Hawks bench 34-31.
Good to see Darko playing 26 minutes off the bench, even though he fouled out. Nice win and another good team effort by the Magic to continue their momentum. Seven wins in ten games is certainly a good sign for what's ahead next season.
Six players scored in double figures for the Magic, including four of the five starters. HTurkoglu led the way with 23 pts on 8 of 12 shooting. DHoward and JNelson each scored 15. Dwight included 13 boards. KDooling and Darko each had good games off the bench with 13 pts each, and DStevenson added 12 pts. Al Harrington led ATL with 20 pts, and Joe Johnson, who burned the Magic for 40 last week, scored just 19 on 7 of 22 shooting. Josh Childress added 18 pts off the bench, and ZaZa had another good game against his ex-team with 16 pts 12 rebs.
The Magic continue their torrid shooting, shooting 59.7% on their FGs. They outscored ATL from the field 89-75, as the Hawks shot just 40%. ATL outscored the Magic 26-19 from the FT line on 76.5% FT shooting. ORL shot 76% from the line. The Magic did not do well rebounding, as they were dominated on the offensive boards by ATL 23-10 and 41-37 overall. The Magic had a slightly better assist-to-turnover ratio of 23-14, compared to 19-13 for ATL. The Magic bench outscored the Hawks bench 34-31.
Good to see Darko playing 26 minutes off the bench, even though he fouled out. Nice win and another good team effort by the Magic to continue their momentum. Seven wins in ten games is certainly a good sign for what's ahead next season.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 9:35 PM
7 Comments:
At 10:41 PM,
Matt said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 10:42 PM,
Matt said…
To allow a bottom feeder like ATL stay so close to us at home while shooting such a high percentage is a disgrace. If we have any hope of improving next year, we have to blow away teams like ATL let alone being out-rebounded by them.
At 12:24 AM,
OVERWADED said…
I would agree with you but the Magic looked as if they were on cruise control tonight. Even when the Hawks came back the Magic pulled right back away. When you look at the stats, especially our shooting %, we should have won by a larger amount, but a wins a win. And personally, if we're gonna win, lets win at home just to give the fans something to cheer about. Otherwise, all it's doing is hurting our lottery pick. Still, it's nice to see our team coming together. It shows we have a good group of young players that will only get better. Too bad the cancer that was Francis was around for as long as he was, he really crippled our team this year, more so than injuries, or lack of coaching... All I want to see from the Magic for the rest of the season is our young guys getting more playing time.
At 3:42 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Matt, even though the Magic didn't dominate the game statistically like they did against PHI and NY, the fact that they can win a game against a scrappy ATL team shows that even when they are subpar in a certain area (like rebounding), they can excel in another area (shooting %) to help them win a game, which is a good sign.
Magic have a very tough game coming up Tuesday at CHI, and they will have to play better if they hope to win that one.
At 5:42 AM,
Anonymous said…
DeShawn said:
“We really don’t talk about offense. Coach is all about defense. He yells about defense. You know we’ve got Jameer that you know, can score yet he looks for people. And when you’ve got a guy like that handling the ball, people will be doing a good job shooting the basket. And Dwight, every time he gets the ball, double-teams, so it’s a good situation for the home team.”
That's a decent situation. Seems like Hill figured out he's not helping the team with his ideas for offense, so he lets the guys do it. Defensively, I do think he's a good coach, so if he can just focus on that, I think that's the least bad position for Hill to coach this team. A better coach would be welcome, obviously, but until then, I think this is the best situation.
At 12:03 PM,
OVERWADED said…
I watched Midnight Magic last night. It was a typical show, but the talks on Jameer did stand out to me. They all pretty much see Jameer as an All-Star in the making, regardless of his size. They talked how the talent levels in the NBA are at an all time high, but the number of "winners" in the game are at a low. And of course Jameer has played in some big games in his young career; and he always looks to stepping up which can be rare in todays game. They also mentioned a list of high school kids that have came out, are great regular season players, but none of them have won anything with the exception of Kobe and he wouldn't have won anything unless he had Shaq. I guess their point was there are just a few guys in the game today that have that "never say die hate to lose attitude", and Jameer is one of the few. Of course what kind of playoff player he'll be is still up in the air a little, but he does his 4 years of college in his bag. The subject was pretty much brought up because Otis Smith said Jameer and Dwight are the cornerstones of the future and how it was a major move dumping Francis and turning the team over to these guys. I guess it was just nice to hear what I've been thinking for a while on TV. ;) Strange how I'm a pessimist by nature, but an optimist when it comes to the Magic...
At 1:23 PM,
Big Figure said…
Well,its easy to see,the trades made all the difference,change the dynamic of your team and things start to take shape,jameer and carlos running the show makes everyone else so much better,just look at the numbers,can you imagine if this team had played together all along this season? Even BSH said something smart today,saying "i'd like to start over with this team and go through training camp,then start the season",if he would have had that opportunity,this team would have been within the 5-8 seeds,with ease at that,right now we'd be talking about who were gonna match up with!
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