Orlando Magic Blog

Group Blog talking about the NBA 2009 Eastern Conference Champions. Due to the amazing success of the 2009 playoff run comments are now frequently deleted to kill offensive comments, incoherence, or asininity. Comments can no longer be anonymous and require either a Blogger or OpenID account.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Magic prevail in OT over Utah

Trailing 107-106 in OT, the Magic outscored the Jazz 8-1 the rest of the way to win 114-108 and extend their home winning streak to 3 games. It was a balanced team effort from the Magic as six players scored in double figures, including all 5 starters.

Jameer Nelson led the Magic with 25 pts and 9 assists and just 1 TO; HTurkoglu (20 pts), TBattie (a season-high 19 pts), DHoward (16 pts 11 rebs), DStevenson (10 pts), and CArroyo off the bench (13 pts) all led the way. Darko had 5 blocks in just 24 minutes. Four players scored in double figures for the Jazz, led by Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer, who each scored 30.

The Magic outscored UT 84-79 from the field on 54.8% shooting. UT shot 42.2%. The Magic shot well from the FT line also, outscoring UT 30-29 on 83.3% FT shooting. UT outrebounded the Magic 39-38, and while the Magic had 25 assists, they were hurt by 21 TOs. UT had a better assist-to-turnover ratio of 24 assists to 13 TOs. The Magic bench outscored Utah's bench 24-5.

Outstanding FT shooting helped the Magic win this one, which was good to see, as poor FT shooting has cost the Magic several games this year. How about the play of our point guards: 38 pts, 12 assists and just 4 TOs. Good job by the Magic playing spoiler against the Jazz, who are fighting to make the playoffs.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 11:30 PM  

4 Comments:

  • At 9:02 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    Welcome to the blog, Jeffrey. What's your view on the coach's shortcomings? Do you see such shortcomings, and if affirmative, how do you think it may affect the team, next year?

     

  • At 9:12 AM, Blogger WeRDevos said…

    Frustrating game until the end. I haven't looked at the stats, here are my observations from the game.

    No one took the pregame shoot around seriously. Everyone was goofing off taking goofy shots and missing everything. Particularly Darko. I probably shouldn't care that much, but practicing missing shots before the game struck me as unprofessional.

    Utah has talent but no depth. AK47 and Okur are their best players. Boozer is o.k. but overpaid. Harpring is the same buzzsaw he was when here. I'm not sure if I would be madder about taking Fran, or Williams over Paul. Williams spent much of the game wasting game clock dribbling in circles. He was not impressive at all last night.

    Magic worked up to a 13 point lead in the first. Darko was first off the bench 6 minutes into the period. He played what seemed to be most of the significant minutes. I would have guessed about 30 minutes if asked.

    All but a point of the lead was wasted in the 2nd. A huge chunk of the second had 5 subs (still no Ariza or Diener) playing as a unit. They were not impressive.

    3rd period was a wash, as was the first half of the fourth. With 6 minutes to go Jerry Sloan started bitching at the refs and finally got a T. At that point the Magic had built a lead back to 8. After the T 9 out of 10 calls went against the Magic, some absurd. Like clockwork, if a call went the Magic's way the ref near the Utah bench would reverse it.

    The Magic did well to stay in the game with the refs scared of Sloan. Thankfully Boozer and Harpring missed a couple of free throws. Jameer created a nice 18 foot shot to win the game but it rattled out.

    Overtime was fun, the arena was rocking and everyone went home happy.

    The arena was about a third empty with more people attending than Saturday night.

    Darko barely shot the ball. Spent most of the night with 0 points. He's great at blocking shots and had a few very nifty passes. If he gains confidence in when he can shoot he's going to be great.

    Arena scoreboard said 10 Magic blocks. It felt more like 15. Darko definitely changes the way teams play in the paint.

    Dooling continues to screw up the break. This time on a 3:1 he should have laid the ball in but instead passed to the covered man.

    Jameer had a fine, confident game.

    Turk had an effective all around game.

    Howard was kind of quiet again for the first 3 periods then played a key role at the end.

     

  • At 11:31 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Yeah i'll agree that keyon is a point guard,and needs to be playing with the ball in his hands,he hasnt shown good ability to play off the ball,so maybe we should find a suitor for keyon in the summer,b/c he aint taking out jameer or carlos at the point,i'm sure there's someone who needs a starting caliber point guard,maybe we could get a shooting guard back for him,if anything i like where we are with the amount of quality players that we have,but i definitely think we could up-grade our back-up two guard position,JJRedick from duke would be heaven sent,or adam morrison for that matter,either would be an up-grade,both have a consistent outside shot from 2 or 3 point range!

     

  • At 11:42 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    With the age limit in place,whoever we draft will come in a seasoned basketball player,with three or four years in college,we all know that,that kind of experience translate's well into the NBA,history says that the majority of players that stay for their junior and senior season's have quicker success in the NBA,so that's gonna make this years pick even more attractive when we pick,it should only take some summer league games,training camp & pre-season for him to be aclimated to the system,then be a major contributor in year one,i think redick,morrison or gay can all be that guy when the draft roles around!

     

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