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.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Horrendous 4th quarter sinks Magic in loss to DET

The Magic (14-7. 7-2 home) failed to take advantage of a DET team playing its second game in two nights. Magic shot a miserable 3 of 16 in the 4th quarter and lost a tough 87-83 decision to DET (13-7), spoiling DHoward's 21st birthday. 12 missed FTs in the game also hurt the Magic.

Dwight did his best to try to lead the Magic to a win, but didn't get much help. He had 25 pts and 10 rebs, along with 11 of 13 FTs. GHill added 12 pts and TAriza led the bench with 10. However, Ariza made just 2 of 7 from the FT line. HTurkoglu was scoreless in 10 minutes, and had to leave the game with an ankle sprain. Chauncey Billups led DET with 31 pts on 11 of 16 shooting. Rip Hamilton added 14 pts, including a couple of big shots late, Rasheed Wallace 13 pts, and Ronald Murray off the bench with 13 pts.

DET (34 of 72, 47.2%) outscored the Magic (29 of 65, 44.6%) from the field 74-61. DET shot 6 of 12 from 3 pt range, while ORL shot just 3 of 13 there. ORL (22 of 34, 64.7%) had the edge at the FT line over DET (13 of 20, 65%). The Magic were outrebounded 38-34, while TOs were even at 13. The Magic had a slightly better assist/turnover ratio of 18-13, compared to 16-13 for DET. The Magic reserves outscored the DET reserves 33-19.

A big difference in this game was that DETs starting backcourt outscored the Magic starting backcourt 45-21. Magic have now lost 3 of 4 games, and have seen their Eastern Conference lead dwindle to 1/2 game over DET, 1 1/2 over CLE, and 3 1/2 over the surging Bulls. The Magic hope to turn things around against the Iverson-less 76ers SAT night.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 12:50 AM  

5 Comments:

  • At 1:17 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    The Magic have got to start picking up their offense, as they have scored over 100 only once in their last 11 games. Sure, it's nice holding the opposition to 87 pts, but what good is that when you only score 83 pts?

    All the missed FTs really stand out in a game like this, with Ariza and Darko combining for just 2 of 9. Great job by Dwight sinking 11 of 13.

    I thing BHill better start thinking about giving J.J. Redick more playing time, as our 3 pt shooting lately has left a lot to be desired.

    Tony Battie scored just 4 pts with 3 rebs in 23 minutes. If he's going to continue to start, he's got to contribute more.

    Darko has had 2 bad games in a row now, scoring a total of just 6 pts with 8 rebs.

    Fortunately, the beleaguered 76ers, losers of 13 of 15, are coming to ORL SAT night, so the Magic should be able to turn things around and start another winning streak.

     

  • At 10:16 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Boy,jameer and hedo really let me down,and they were who i was particularly watching,hedo's first two shots were jumpers-both misses (i'm almost tired of watching hedo bail teams out with all his misses),jameer's first shot came on a driving lay-up which showed billups didnt have his legs and that was the last time jameer attacked the basket,(thats just pitiful with someone like jameer's quickness),this team is starting to show weaknesses defensively also,battie isnt a great defender so go at him,hedo's also a mediocre defender so go at him too,grants old and playing out of position so run him off screens because its impossible for him to stay with the smaller two guards like hamilton,3 losses out of the last four arent reason for concern yet seeing how 2 of those came on the end of a west coast trip,but i tell you what,they lose to the sixers tonight and i'm going to start calling for some changes in the line-up,because technically we wouldnt be winning anymore,jameer and tony need to have very solid games tonight in a victory.

     

  • At 4:09 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    I thought DET playing on a back-to-back and us playing the first game at home after a long road trip would be a wash, but I was wrong. DET was the fresher team towards the end and they defended better and executed their offense well. Here are my observation:

    1 - Hedo is struggling on his offense, and with his defense being below average, I am leaning towards starting Trevor, right now.
    2 - Tony was not feeling well, yet Hill could not get himself to start Darko. Dwight and Darko together would have been quite a load for DET to handle, offensively and defensively.
    3 - We knew that Jameer could not defend Billups but, as Big Figure has noted, why not try to match up his output by attacking him on the other end?
    4 - As expected everybody was off a bit. Keyon took some shots that were awful.

     

  • At 4:54 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    There is always a different perspective when watching a game live rather than TV. But from where I was, in the end, a few things stood out, a lot of which related to coaching.

    1. Execution was horrible down the stretch. They looked like a high school team. It was almost like they didn't know what plays to call.

    2. Sheed picked up his 5th foul with almost 5 minutes left in the game. The next play they went to Howard, and traveling was called on him. From that point on, Howard wasn't put on the block again until the last seconds of the game. Why did they not attack Sheed to try and get him fouled out earlier; I have no idea.

    3. Darko. OK, so I get what I want. Darko is playing at the end of the game with Dwight. Of all the games, seriously... Brian Hill usually tries to say the reason Darko is not out there more is match up purposes. Well, in all of the finals minutes of last night's game, Darko played, with Dwight. Was it a good match up, no? He was guarding Prince. And yes, Prince was guarding him. It was a mismatch on both ends of the court. The difference was, the Pistons actually let Prince have a ball a few plays and try and use his quickness against Darko. What did Brian Hill do, he put Darko in the post 1 time again Prince, where it looked as if he was fouled, but it wasn't called, and that was that. Really, Prince can guard Darko in the post?

    Would it really have been that hard to get Dwight or Darko the ball down low in the post in the final 5 minutes of the game? Both of them were in mismatches. Darko had a much smaller weaker player on him. And Dwight had a 5 foul Sheed guarding him. Did the Magic make an attempt to capitalize, no?

    4. Pat Garrity. I pretty sure WeRDevos knows the actually game stats to this question. What is our record in games where Pat Garrity plays? I'm pretty sure we have a losing record this season in the games Garrity plays. He played last night. It was tough enough to watch in the 1st half, let alone having to see him on the court in the 4th quarter. I guess I have to be a horrible person and hope for a bad injury to Garrity, otherwise, Brian Hill is going to continue playing his sorry ass.

    5. ZERO 3 point shooting. Hedo hasn't exactly been lighting the world on fire, but without him at least standing out there, we had nobody. And no Brian Hill, Pat Garrity doesn't count anymore. He hasn't been a capable player or even shooter any of the time Brian Hill has been here, so why does Hill think he is?

    6. Redick back in a suit. Really? This guy was just THE COLLEGE PLAYER OF THE YEAR. He and Morrison were 2 of the biggest names in college last season. Well, Morrison is playing, on a not so great team, but he is playing and putting up good numbers I might add. Redick on the other hand, can't even make our 12 man roster? I wonder how many teams out there would like to give a shooter like Redick a chance to play? Instead, Brian Hill is doing what Larry Brown did to Darko with him. Awesome...

    7. Keith Bogans. Brian Hill has no clue what to use this guy for. In the end, I guess he was out there because he's a better shot than Ariza? Sure, Ariza had a bad night on the free throw line, but things were happening when he was on the floor. I'm pretty sure he could have finished on the break a few times, unlike Bogans who put up a whooping 0 last night.

    8. Use of Arroyo. Alright, so Arroyo was playing his normal kind of minutes last night. He was playing the 1st half of the 4th quarter, pushing the ball like crazy. The problem, he was the only one running. Every time, it ended up being 1 on 3, 4, or 5. He didn't have anyone other players out there with him that could run with him. Why not have G Hill or Ariza on the floor with him? Those are the guys that get out on the break the best.

    So of course the free throw shooting sucked, but there was a lot more that went into that loss (from my point of view) than missing FT's. I guess the good news is, as bad as the Magic looked in the 4th, they still could have won the game.

    Oh yeah, next time we play Detroit, it'd be nice if someone would at least put their hand up and at least fake defending Billups rather than just letting him shoot over and over again.

     

  • At 5:55 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    Great points, Introvert316. The only thing I want to re-emphasize is that we have to differentiate between Dwight and Darko playing at the start or at the end. Playing at the start may help put the games out of reach early on so that the execution doesn't become so crucial at the end.

     

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