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, January 13, 2007

Missed FTs hurt Magic in narrow loss to Lakers

The Magic (22-15, 8-9 road), trying to win in LA for the first time since 1996, gave the LAL all they could handle, but the Lakers (24-13, 17-4 home), led by Kobe Bryant's 16 4th quarter pts, prevailed over the Magic 109-106.

The Magic were led by DHoward, who had a double-double of 25 pts and 10 rebs. However, he was just 7 of 16 from the FT line and had 5 TOs. GHill added 20 pts on 8 of 11 FGs; HTurkoglu 18 pts, and CArroyo off the bench with 11 pts. Bryant led LA with 28 pts on 9 of 15 FGs, 10 of 11 FTs; Smush Parker hurt the Magic again, with a career-high 26 pts; and Luke Walton 12 pts.

LA (38 of 77, 49.4%) outscored the Magic (38 of 75, 50.4%) from the floor 83-81. LA hit on 7 of 18 3 pters, while the Magic were 5 of 12. LA (26 of 35) had the edge at the FT line over the Magic (25 of 39, 64.1%). LA had a slight edge on the boards over ORL 41-38. The Magic had a very good AST/TO ratio of 27/12, but LA was even better at 26/9. The Magic reserves edged the Lakers reserves 27-26.

The Magic still had a chance to tie at the end, but JNelson's (3 of 10 FG, 7 pts) last second 3 pt attempt clanked off the rim. Magic proved they can play on the road against a strong team, but 14 missed FTs spoiled an otherwise strong effort. The Magic really have their work cut out for them SAT night, facing the high-flying Suns.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 2:44 AM  

6 Comments:

  • At 3:09 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    What a game... except for FT%, which the Lakers won by a wide margin, all the stats were very close, and virtually identical in many categories.

    I sure didn't expect the Magic to attempt more FTs on the road than the Lakers (39-35), but they did and it's too bad they couldn't have made more than 25. I feel bad for Dwight, who had his usual outstanding game other than shooting just 7 of 16 from the line.

    The hot shooting that we saw with Bogans and Dooling against GS just wasn't there against LA, as they both combined to shoot just 3 of 12 (though Bogans did hit a couple 3s). This was the type of game that J.J. Redick could have made a difference in.

    Even though Nelson shot poorly again, he deserves credit for 6 asts and 0 TOs. 27 assists overall for the team is a really good number.

    Thanks to WAS losing to the Hornets, the Magic are still in first in the SE.

     

  • At 11:39 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    tyexicEntertaining game to watch,free throws obviously hurt the magic.The difference in the in-game action between the teams was the on the ball defense of jameer/carlos and grant,the lakers point guards (parker & farmar) did whatever they wanted against jameer and carlos's defense.Parker shoots the ball right over jameer as if to say your too short little guy,and carlos couldnt keep farmar in front of him to save his life getting called for hand-check foul after foul.Kobe played as smart as i've ever seen him play,for three quarters he let his teammates help on the scoreboard then in the fourth quarter he took over,which brings me to grant,his defense was horrible,even though keyon is way shorter than kobe at least keyon is active and doesnt let kobe just pull up in his face,grant seems to think that he's so good defensively that he doesnt have to have help or keep his hands active,kobe just shoots over the defense in his face and makes it look like the shot attempts are pretty comfortable shots,he should never shoot comfortable shots,everything should be made difficult for him,poking at the ball-crowding him-forcing him one way,so many things defensively that grant just didnt do.

     

  • At 2:18 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Nice observations regarding the Magic flaws on defense, Big Figure. Their defense had done so well during the 5 game winning streak... it obviously wasn't there last night.

     

  • At 3:24 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    Not having Ariza out there had a lot to do with those defensive issues. He is the guy who has been playing big minutes over our win streak, and the anchor to our perimeter defense.

    As far as a hot shooter goes, Ariza would have drawn that assignment, and I'm sure he would have done a lot better than anyone else on our team.

     

  • At 5:28 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    All valid points on how players did not perform as expected, but the underlying flaw was there. We were doing fine while they were trying to defend Dwight straight up with Bynum and a host of others. The trouble started again when they packed in and went to the zone defense, while Hedo and Jameer were struggling to shoot straight. Carlos was trying to find his way around, and the offense looked out of sync, once again. Garrity was futile, as usual, and J.J. was keeping the bench warm, while Travis was nowhere to be found. This was our best chance to get Lakers when Kobe was not 100 percent and Kwame was out of action, and we blew it.

    The half time interview with Otis Smith was disappointing, as well. First he couldn't say with straight face whether or not Magic had any interest in Webber; something to the effect that 29 other teams were interested in Webber. Then he said he is going all the way to Europe to check on the Goof-ball Fran Vasquez. We know that Smith considers Fran an asset, but where is your pride and dignity? A smart GM will wait until the guy is available and then trades him for the best that he can get for. Playing like a diplomat when talking about Webber but couldn't you at least pretend that you have some other business in Europe to attend to, as well?

     

  • At 6:14 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Good points matt,is it me or does otis seem slow?

     

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