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 20, 2007

Tuning out BSH!

I never thought i would say this but i was very let down last night by the players,and not for their play,but for their lack of following blatant directions.During the 3rd quarter bsh calls a timeout to give some needed direction,The sideline reporter for the magic(forgot his name)says to the audience watching quote:brian hill just told his guys "take the ball all the way to the rim".So i was expecting that whoever shot next would at least do what the coach asked,what we got was shocking to me.Jameer brings the ball down the court and gets into a pick and roll situation with dwight,dwight sets a good screen and jameer has an alley to the basket going toward the baseline,jameer then chooses to shoot a jumper over his defender(arenas)because his defender became a little of balance,jameer misses the jumper when it was clear he couldve had a lay-up attempt,gilbert races back down court and draws a foul on one of our big guys,thats why we lose.Not following the coaches direction at any point in a game hurts the team much more than any basket a player scores,and this aint just about jameer,grant and keyon followed jameer in the jumpshot party,the next two shots were jumpers by you guessed it,grant and keyon,both misses.So lets re-cap,coach says take the ball to the hoop (which is good coaching might i add)we get 3 jumpshots by jameer,grant and keyon.This isnt a quality collection of guys in my opinion,are they good guys? Sure,But being a good guy dont win games.Like intro is saying if your gonna play inside out then you need shooters on the floor,after looking at the mike miller and pau gasol trade for darko and grant,it seems like a good deal for both sides,memphis would get a replacement for gasol,get an expiring contract and servicable player in grant.The magic would get a true 2guard in miller who can shoot the three at 6ft8,plus bsh wouldnt be able to start battie anymore with gasol in the building,dwight and gasol= dominant,plus hedo-mike and jameer together would give you shooters at all three wing positions and quality starters to boot.We can live with jameer's shooting make or miss because he'a shooting point guard,but we cant live with our two shooting guards shooting so poorly from three point range,thats part of the reason why dwight turns it over so much some games,defenses collapsing becuase they dont respect our outside threats,mike miller and hedo would work great together,as much as i love grant he's playing out of position,and so is keyon,neither should be playing the 2,and neither played the 2 for the team they came from which proves my point,grant was an all-star small-forward,and keyon played back-up point guard to damon jones for the heat.To me its time for otis to start giving his coach players that can play in his system,shooters.And that does not mean promote trav or JJ to starting roles,it means aquire starting caliber players that fit the specific need and will follow direction.The problem with this team is we want to play inside out with a whole bunch of ballers who dont follow direction well at the moment,their's nothing wrong with playing inside out if you have the team to do it,look at san antone,with bowen and ginobli being shooters,they can play inside out,with grant and hedo,we try and play inside out but at the same time we have to tell grant to take it to the rim because he doesnt even attempt three's and his jumpshooting doesnt put any pressure on the defense if he misses,hedo's really our shooting guard because he can shoot from anywhere,but he cant guard shooting guards,which is what puts us into a mess,and why grants really on the floor playing the two,not because he's the best shooting guard we can employ,to me its time to find one,and move battie to the bench.
12:52 PM

15 Comments:

  • At 4:29 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    BIG, your post is probably the most I've ever agreed with you.

    As far as the player/coach issues...there can't be that many answers, either our players are ignorant, or they're not responding to Brian Hill. Either way a change needs to be made. From past instances, it's still hard for me not to point the finger at Brian Hill, as he's never been a good coach. However, all of these players have been successful at one time or another in their careers. If they are not listening to Brian Hill, there is a problem, and if a guy like Grant Hill isn't listening, then I'm guessing the problem is the coach.

    However with that said, advice on taking it to the basket is good advice. Personally, I have no problem with how Jameer and Grant play. My only problem with Grant is he doesn't spread the floor at all. As for Dooling, I have a big problem with how he plays. The only shots he needs to be taking are open spot up jump shots and fast break baskets; nothing else. He's not a creator, why is it that so often I see this guy trying to create a shot for himself? Who is Keyon Dooling to have the green light? Why does a guy that lacks the ability to be consistent continue to play big minutes for us? As was pointed out, if Arroyo was benched, will Dooling eventually be benched? The answer is no, because Brian Hill thinks he's a great defender, even though his numbers never say so, and opponents he guards night in and out continue to put up big numbers on him. In Dooling’s defense, he’s playing out of position. But everyone is trying to act if he is a 2, otherwise we’d have to acknowledge that we have 4 point guards on our team and only 2 shooting guards, neither of which that play in Bogans and Redick. It's time to see what Redick is made of.

    For that matter, it's time to see what Diener and Darko are made of. The team isn't winning. These guys need multiply games with significant minutes. There's no better time than now. But that probably won't happen, as Brian Hill likes to play it safe. We'll probably finish around .500. We'll make the playoffs because the East is horrible. And that will be good enough for Hill to keep his job, since we haven’t been in the playoffs years.

     
  • At 5:05 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    BIG, you've made a few comments from post to post so I figured that's why you setup this column. So here are a few more thoughts I had from earlier.

    First; in regards to the PG position. I know it was mentioned on the Sentinel post that Amare wouldn't be Amare without Nash. You could add that K-Mart would have never been anything without J-Kidd. The problem is, PG’s like that don't really exist in today's NBA. There are pretty much the only 2. And sure, J-Kidd might be available, but he'll be 34 next month and has had his share of health issues. While I agree with the idea, I just don’t know if that kind of player is out there anymore. So the best thing the Magic can do is put solid players (shooters) out there surrounding Dwight. Jameer isn't a bad option, if you look around the league at the PG position. And if we surrounded Dwight and Darko with shooters, I don't think we'd be having nearly as many problems as we're having now.

    Sad note; I almost started believing Carlos was going to be one of those playmaking PG's for us, but his game has went right down the toilet. Arroyo started four games this season and is averaging 8.4 points and 3.1 assists. But his performance has dropped off significantly in the past 14 games, when he has averaged 4.4 points and shot just 28.2 percent (22-for-78).

    I don't know who the answer is as I'm not the coach or GM. If I was the coach, I'd be starting Darko. I'd also be playing Diener and Redick together off the bench. These 3 need big minutes. Darko and Diener need minutes, as they are both in contract years and we need to see what they are worth. And Redick needs minutes, because we suck at the 2 spot and do nothing but play guys out of position there.

    As for those fantasy trades; I'd pull the trigger in a heartbeat for Gasol and Miller. We'd have a great starting five and be an instant contender in the East. Of course that won't happen, but we can all have dreams.

    In the end, I'm just a lowly diehard fan that nobody knows about. I wish I knew what the Magic's plans were. They must have their eyes on someone right? We have obvious issues in our backcourt that need to be settled sooner than later. It'd be nice if we could use Grant Hill to land a player or two. I'm sure they're plenty of teams that will inquire about him for his expiring contract. Unfortunately, Otis does nothing but praise Grant, and talks of him like he's one of the keys of this team’s future. Maybe that's his form of strategy, but it's obvious that Grant Hill is not the answer at the 2 spot. He's a small forward, and he always has been. He doesn't spread the floor, and he's not getting any younger. If he's apart of our future, it needs to be a future coming off of the bench. But personally, I'd rather attempt to get a solid player or two out of him in a trade. Otherwise, we get nothing but his money, which is fine if we turn that into a big free agent. If not, that sucks; and we’ll to resign him, hopefully for the VET-MIN; but that still doesn’t solve our problems at the 2 spot.

     
  • At 6:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    hey guys,

    a couple more comments:

    --last night was a (bad) anamoly in several ways, but it gave some indication that our defense is only average. statistics, of course, indicate otherwise, because we hold opponents to low point totals. but low point totals are a function of two different processes at work: pace and defense. typically, we emphasize a slower, half-court set, which reduces scoring opportunities for both us and our opponents. i'm agnostic on whether this pace is advisable. it works for our plodding bigs (milicic, battie), works against our drivers and so-called shooters (ariza, dooling) and may work for or against howard (for is we want him to become a post-up menace, against if we want him to become an amare-type player).

    yet pace is definitely from ability to defend. even though bhill prides himself on defense, the magic's skills vary widely on this count. ariza is a very good defender, nelson is poor, and milicic-- as noted previously-- is somewhere in between.

    my point is that it's a mistake to assume our defense is fine and that our offense solely needs to improve. our offense is horrible, particularly late in games. but our defense is only average. if we didn't enjoy healthy rebounding advantages, we'd be in bad shape.

    --second, i'm not that mike miller-- or any other slow-moving shooting-- is the key to our success (pau gasol, of course, would be very desirable). he has, admittedly, looked good ever since we traded him to memphis (and the deal seemed so good at the time). that said, he's still a non-factor defensively. more generally, he's having too good of a season for us to acquire in a reasonable trade. my own fantasy-land vote is for joe johnson.

    --anonymous (this may turn out be my nickname)

     
  • At 10:44 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    I would have no problem with joe johnson.

     
  • At 11:36 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    The wizards are about to run away with our division,and dont look now but the heat are about to pass the magic also as soon as they get shaq back because theyve been making a charge lately without him,the magic may miss the playoffs,i dont think three teams in our division will make the play-offs.

     
  • At 1:24 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    C'mon, Big Figure, don't be so pessimistic! The Magic only trail WAS by 2 1/2 games, and are a full 3 games ahead of the Heat. I'm not convinced those teams are better than the Magic. They have the superstars (MIami DWade and WAS Arenas), but they don't have as much depth and young talent like the Magic do.

    If someone had told me before the season started that the Magic would only be 2 1/2 games behind for the best record in the East after 41 games, I would have happily accepted.

    There's no reason why the Magic can't make the playoffs, with our talented young players and solid vets. When Ariza comes back in another month or so, that will be a huge boost for the team.

     
  • At 9:58 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Mike,did you watch the wizards game?How and the world are you convinced that the magic are better than the wiz? Lets see,they have arenas,butler and jamison. Who do we have? All three of those guys can get thirty.Mike,i think you have been fooled by the 13-4 record they posted,this team isnt better than a full strength wiz or heat.We are only 2 games ahead of 8th place,we could easily be on the outside looking in if we dont win the next 2 or 3 games,and right now i dont see how we are going to get out of this funk and win a game,we dont play the right players,we dont listen to coaching,we dont attack the basket and we cant shoot free-throws to save our lives.9-15 is who we are,thats not pessimism,thats reality.

     
  • At 10:29 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Only trail? That division lead could ballon to 5-10 games with the way we've been playing.And a full 3? Mike are you serious,you think with shaq coming back that 3 game lead is safe? And what depth do the magic have? Sure we got alot of players,but when used incorrectly you get no production,see wizards game.Now we do have some talented young players i would agree with that,but that doesnt win games,and as much as i love trevor huge boosts dont either for that matter.Mike,i'm just being realistic,i dont sugar coat things well,i call it like i see it,and right now if we dont win a game soon we could be in the midst of a shake-up within the roster,our gm's job is putting winning players on the floor and right now you cant call us a winning team,look at the records of the teams we have beaten in the last 9 wins.

     
  • At 10:32 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    In the last 24 games,we've played 6 games below 500% basketball,i dont understand where you draw your confidence from,the lowly hornets treated us like step children.

     
  • At 11:20 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    I would love to be optimistic,but the magic have to show me something to be optimistic about,never pessimistic though.

     
  • At 2:48 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    While I agree that we have issues, in no way do I think this team is in as bad of shape as you're describing BIG. You have to take into consideration we're a team that wins with our depth, and we started losing once that depth went away due to injuries.

    This is not the same team without Ariza. He provides so much for this team. If you recall a few weeks ago, everyone was really excited at the "star in the making" Ariza was becoming before our eyes. We were viewing him as a future star, and were winning games. Since he went down, we haven't won a game since. I'm pretty sure he could have been the difference maker in a few of those games; especially the loses against 2 of the best teams out West who we took to the final seconds.

    Sure we haven't been winning games, sure we've had injuries, sure we have a suspect coach, but the fact of the matter still remains we don't know what half of our players are capable of; but that is what you get with a team as young as ours. 3 of our key players are 21, one of which is out, what do you expect? With any youth, there usually is no medium, there are highs and lows, and the younger they are, usually determines the extremities of the highs and lows.

    So I agree that it's painful to watch the Magic right now. There's a new injury every night, our coach is slow, and our confidence has been shaken a lot; but the fact still remains that this team has shown they can play with anyone in this league.

    We're only at the midway point of the season. ALOT can happen the second half of the season. Everything that we've done the first half of the season really means nothing. We're still above .500, and we have plenty of games left to win or lose. If you need an example of why the 1st half of the season means nothing, take a look at all those teams that blow up in the first half of the season, and people start thinking they're the early title favorite. Yeah, talk about early, because it doesn't mean anything. Remember the Pistons last year? They DOMINATED THE ENTIRE LEAGUE the first half of the season. The second half of the season they were nothing like that. They peaked early and looked like ass the entire playoffs almost losing to a 1st appearance Cavs squad, and then losing easily to a weaker Heat team they beat the year before.

    As for the mention of the Wizards and the Heat comparing them to the Magic... The Wizards do have 3 nice players, just like the Nets, and they are average at best. The only thing that puts the Wizards up a little is the heroics of Arenas. But their bigs suck. They have no bigs, in turn, they can do whatever they what, in the end, they'll still lose. As for the Heat, half of their key players are on Social Security. I find it hard to believe that Shaq is better than Dwight; maybe 5 years ago. Shaq is no longer the dominant player to fear that he once was. He's huge, and you have to respect his size, but he's nothing close to what he once was, and he's shown that to us for a few years now, especially last years playoffs.

    So sure I'm frustrated... But that is what you have to expect with a team this young. And right now, we don’t know what to expect. It’s easy to say this team could fall out of the playoffs while we’re losing. But then again, we’ve shown we can win games.

     
  • At 5:19 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Everything you said basically means your going to remain optimistic,there's nothing wrong with that.

     
  • At 4:38 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    First off, it was a tremendous thrill watching the Bears win the NFC Championship and advancing to the Super Bowl... GO BEARS!!

    Alright... back to the Magic. "Overwaded", I agree with every word you wrote on your 2:48 PM post. Very well-put about the current state of the Magic... I couldn't have wriiten it any better!

    Heck yeah, I'm frustrated too about the Magic's current 5 game losing streak. We're going through a tough stretch of games, no question, and without our number one defensive stopper, the Magic will probably lose at least a few more by the end of this month; but the Magic will pull through and snap out of this. Like "Overwaded" said, look how well the Magic played at LAL and at PHX, both without Ariza.

    Big Figure, you asked me how can I be convinced that the Magic are better than the Wizards. Well, when I was in FL for my holiday vacation, I watched them play at WAS, and they played tremendous and fought really hard before losing by a mere point 112-111. I draw my confidence from games like that.

    Sure, the Magic embarrassed themselves in recent losses to NO/OKC and WAS. Those games were an anomaly, and not a good indicator of the real Magic team. It's a long 82 game season, and every team will have a few clunkers like that over the course of the season.

    With J.J. Redick having a solid game on against NJ, he should be a part of the player rotation now, which could only help the Magic.

    With the Heat losing to DAL on SUN, the Magic are now 3 1/2 games ahead of the Heat.

    Like "Overwaded" said, a lot can happen the second half of the season.

     
  • At 11:08 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    So when we play tough its who we are,and when we play bad its an anomoly,OOOOOOOOO K mike,if you say so.I think the one point loss to the wiz was the anomoly,since we went 13-4 trevor was there for alot of the recent struggles,and our struggle's have been much more frequent than our tough play,plus its almost comical to me that a bench players is being considered the savior by some,your comments insinuate that "the players cant win without trevor",this team can win without trevor guys,his name shouldnt be mentioned so much.Obviously you guys are more optimistic than i am.Hopefully things turn around as i only want whats best for the team,and if the right players are given playing time i agree the team can win,but we havent gotten winning combinations from bsh or maximum concentration from the team "with who we have healthy" in the last 5 games,and thats all i care about.

     
  • At 1:57 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    BIG, if you recall, we did beat the Wizards once in November.

    As for our struggles when we still had Ariza in the lineup; sure we had some. But again, at that time we were missing 2 and 3 starters a game. That was the period where Nelson and Turk were out. G Hill was also out some of those games. Keith Bogans was out. Personally note: I do not consider G Hill or Bogans a factor. We can win without both of them. However, guys like Nelson, Turk, Ariza, Dwight, and even Darko are key to this team’s success. We can lose anyone else and I don't expect much of an impact, as I expect someone else to fill in. However, the loss of any of those guys can't be replaced. However, I never said this team can't win without Ariza. But I did say, and I will continue to say, this team will struggle without him.

    I don’t know the numbers, but I’d be interested to see what our record is when we have those 5 guys healthy.

     

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