Magic finally run out of Magic in OT against CHI
The Magic looked like they would end their home season by winning their 13th home game in a row after they jumped out to a 64-48 lead in the third quarter. From that point on, however, CHI tightened up their defense, forcing the Magic into taking tough shots and committing several TOs, and pulled away in OT to end the Magic's 8 game winning streak 116-112.
HTurkoglu led the Magic with 32 pts (7 of 11 FG, 14 of 16 FT). DHoward had another good game with 22 pts 14 rebs. JNelson added 15 pts, but with 7 TOs, and KDooling led the bench with 12 pts. Three players for CHI scored over 20 pts: Kirk Hinrich with 26 pts 10 assists, Andres Nocioni with 24 pts, and Luol Deng off the bench with 22 pts 11 rebs. Ben Gordon added 18 pts.
Very close stats for the game. CHI (38 of 80, 47.5%) edged the Magic (36 of 82, 43.9%) from the field 81-80. CHI (35 of 45, 77.8%) held a slight edge from the FT line over the Magic (32 of 40, 80%). The Bulls tough defense held the Magic to their lowest FG% in quite some time. ORL edged CHI on the boards 43-41. The Bulls had a superior assist-to-turnover ratio of 27-14, while the Magic ratio was just 18-20. The 20 TOs really hurt ORL. The CHI bench outscored the ORL bench 40-30.
Hedo was outstanding again, but his missed FT in the final seconds of regulation was costly. The Magic were forced to foul in the OT as they fell behind, and CHI hit just about every OT FT. It would have been great to win the home finale and have a 13 game home winning streak, but the Magic have nothing to be ashamed of losing to the tough, scrappy, playoff-bound Bulls, who are playing their best basketball of the season.
HTurkoglu led the Magic with 32 pts (7 of 11 FG, 14 of 16 FT). DHoward had another good game with 22 pts 14 rebs. JNelson added 15 pts, but with 7 TOs, and KDooling led the bench with 12 pts. Three players for CHI scored over 20 pts: Kirk Hinrich with 26 pts 10 assists, Andres Nocioni with 24 pts, and Luol Deng off the bench with 22 pts 11 rebs. Ben Gordon added 18 pts.
Very close stats for the game. CHI (38 of 80, 47.5%) edged the Magic (36 of 82, 43.9%) from the field 81-80. CHI (35 of 45, 77.8%) held a slight edge from the FT line over the Magic (32 of 40, 80%). The Bulls tough defense held the Magic to their lowest FG% in quite some time. ORL edged CHI on the boards 43-41. The Bulls had a superior assist-to-turnover ratio of 27-14, while the Magic ratio was just 18-20. The 20 TOs really hurt ORL. The CHI bench outscored the ORL bench 40-30.
Hedo was outstanding again, but his missed FT in the final seconds of regulation was costly. The Magic were forced to foul in the OT as they fell behind, and CHI hit just about every OT FT. It would have been great to win the home finale and have a 13 game home winning streak, but the Magic have nothing to be ashamed of losing to the tough, scrappy, playoff-bound Bulls, who are playing their best basketball of the season.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 11:45 PM
2 Comments:
At 10:12 AM,
Big Figure said…
Great efforts by both sides,coach hill admitted he could have coached better,jameer i'm sure if asked would say his turns were the difference,and we didnt get our usuall defensive game from darko,with all that said we still could've won the game,which tells me that this team is gonna be even harder to beat next year,b/c we're just learning how to play basketball the right way,the bulls have been doing it for a while now,i'm proud of the effort the guys gave for the most part,and by the way if we give a team 20 turnovers and they still needed overtime to beat us,then we know who the better team is,the other team (the bulls)just played better that night,i see alot more of these match-ups between the bulls and the magic being tough hard fought games for years to come,but i think our foundation of jameer and dwight is what's gonna seperate the two teams in the future games!
At 6:53 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
It'll be interesting to see what the Bulls do in the off-season. In addition to their own draft pick, they have the Knicks lottery draft pick from the Eddy Curry trade. Might GM John Paxson trade that lottery pick and one of his talented young players for a bonafide all-star big man that might make the Bulls a bonafide title contender? It would be a risk, however, to break up the nice chemistry on the Bulls and trade a young player who might become a legitimate star in a year or two for another team. But the Bulls do need a legitimate big man, no doubt.
I do agree that the Magic have a better future as a team right now than the Bulls do. The nucleus for the Magic is now in place (Nelson, Howard, and Darko) with just a few more pieces that have to be added in the next year or two.
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