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.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Hot-shooting Bobcats send Magic to yet another loss

Struggling CHA, which had an 8 game losing streak and playing without C Emeka Okafor, found the perfect opponent to get well against as the Bobcats (23-41, 14-17 home) ran their offense to near perfection in a 119-108 win over the Magic (29-36, 10-23 away) that wasn't as close as the score might indicate, as CHA held an 18 pt lead entering the final quarter. This was the Magic's 10th loss in 12 games since after the All-Star Break.

CHA was led in scoring by reserve Derek Anderson, who poured in 24 pts along with 10 asts; Raymond Felton 21 pts, 7 asts; Gerald Wallace 20 pts, 9 asts; and Primoz Brezec, starting in place of Okafor, 17 pts. The Magic were led by DHoward with 26 pts, 11 rebs but only 10 of 19 FTs; HTurkoglu 23 pts; JNelson 17 pts, 8 rebs; and reserve TAriza 12 pts. GHill and DMilicic combined for just 16 pts on 6 of 17 FGs.

CHA (42 of 75, 56%) outscored the Magic (39 of 79, 49.4%) from the field 98-83. CHA hit on a sizzling 14 of 22 from 3 pt range, while the Magic shot just 5 of 13 from long range. The Magic (25 of 38) shot poorly on FTs compared to CHA (21 of 25). The Magic did outrebound CHA 40-27, including 14-4 on the offensive boards. CHA had an absolutely stunning AST/TO ratio of 39/13 (39 asts on 42 FGS... now that's what you call an efficient offense), while the Magic's ratio was 21/14. The CHA bench outscored the Magic bench 38-26.

Grant Hill of the Magic afterward: "The Bobcats played like they were the team fighting for the playoffs. We looked like the team that was out of it."

Magic now fall to the 10th spot in the East, trailing NJ by 1/2 game for 9th, and NY by 1 game for the 8th seed. Magic come home to play the very tough Utah Jazz WED.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 1:04 AM  

11 Comments:

  • At 2:08 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    The Magic finally play a decent game offensively, but have a complete and total defensive breakdown against a team with an 8 game losing streak and playing without their star center... yet another low point for the Magic.

    Again, it's Brian Hill's job to properly prepare, motivate, and encourage this team for every game, along with making the proper in-game adjustments, especially at this crucial juncture of the season with the playoffs at stake. He simply isn't doing a good job of those things right now, pure and simple. Of course, the players aren't blameless for this poor stretch of play, but the ultimate responsibility falls on Brian Hill.

    I thought that Matt's post regarding Brian Hill that he posted on the Sentinel's blog was very straight-forward and concise, and not at all disrespectful.

    Look how well CHA played, and they were missing their star center and well out of the playoff picture... their coach can properly motivate them and prepare them to play.

    The only highlight for the Magic in this game was seeing Travis Diener finally get some long-overdue playing time, and he hit a 3 pt FG in only 5 minutes.

    I still can't get believe that CHA had 39 asts... that is awesome! Hats off to CHA, who showed up to play against the Magic.

     

  • At 12:08 PM, Blogger Ken said…

    I'm practically speechless... The defensive minded coach who can't get any defense from his team? I think what hurts the most is all the yukking it up at the end of the game by Nelson and Co. I can deal with the loss. But this team doesn't seem to care either way. And I am very close to the same conclusion.

     

  • At 1:29 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    Call me crazy, or call it wishful thinking, but something is up. The Magic are not this bad. I saw something interesting last night. The game was all but over, in the last few minutes. The Magic called a timeout. B Hill was doing his thing, and right when he was finishing Jameer walked out of the huddle first, smiling. Then Dwight followed, and was like "yo". Jameer waited for Dwight to catch up, both of the kept their backs turned to the bench, and were trying to hold back laughter. While one part of me said, come on, you're losing a basketball game to the Bobcats, quit joking around, cause it's not funny. The other part of me thinks this team really doesn't like Brian Hill.

    Either way, it's obvious the team IS NOT responding to him as coach.

    They've had some really interesting thoughts over at FireBrianHill.org as of late. Some of them are nothing more than rumors or opinions, but they're interesting to say the least. And regardless what rumors or opinions are true; nobody can argue that these players have stopped responding to Hill. Something’s really do never change.

    So, change players or whatever, but Brian Hill has to be changed also. Their little dream isn't working, and Orlando can't take another 2 years of this douche.

     

  • At 10:46 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Mike bianchi i dont like,but his article in the sentinel says it all perfectly!!!!!

     

  • At 11:01 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Boy i hope jameer is ready to be paid for how he played,because he doesnt deserve some huge extention.

     

  • At 1:12 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    With new york and new jersey holding tie breakers,it looks like the magic have played their way right out of the playoffs,good job guys,playoffs would give this city false hope for the future,this team needs to be broken down.

     

  • At 1:46 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    I concur with OVERWADED that something strange is going on. These proud professionals were all smiles losing to Bobcats, for Pete's sake. It is quite possible that the players are in the same frame of mind that we all here are; it is an all win-win situation.

    As for the team, I am not ready to give up on Jameer yet, but I am not so sure about Carlos. I like Keyon better as a back-up PG provided he raises his shooting efficiency, which I think he can. We definitely need a shooting guard with scoring mentality. Magic should go after Rashard Lewis with all they have got, without much regard for luxury tax. As I said earlier, it would have been a lot easier before the February trade deadline to pull off a trade for Rashard. It would take some skills and a lot of flexibility in opening the check book in summer, but it is doable.

     

  • At 7:08 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    It's funny to me hearing people with the Magic talking about getting a win and turning this thing around. I just want to smack them, and ask them what they hell they are talking about? I mean seriously, for the most part, this team has been losing since December. We finished last season off nicely, and we started this season off great, other than that, we've stunk it up. And as of now, we've lost more than we've won, sooooo, how is this team going to all the sudden turn around with 17 games left????

     

  • At 10:37 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    We went from the 10th spot to the 8th spot with one victory,the east is horrible!!! Boy i love the 8 man rotation,the back-court that we've been calling for for a long time finally got on the court together at the right positions while carlos and keith both get dnpcd's,keyon plays the point for the first time this season with carlos healthy,JJ gets the back-up shooting guard minutes,and bsh let the team run,if he subs like that the rest of the way that would mean carlos has lost his job and keith will only play if JJ or trevor get injured,i'm ok with that seeing the results of the team tonight with that rotation,the only thing that will be different is when darko comes back i expect that to expand to a nine man rotation.If bsh keeps everything like it was tonight,we may be able to salvage this season and get something positive out of it,but only this rotation,as we all can see experience wins in this league,and grant-hedo and battie have to be in the starting line-up with jameer and dwight to give us any type chance of competeing with all the more experienced eastern conference teams,"BUT" keyon-JJ and trevor should get major back-up minutes just like we saw tonight and the team will win like that alot more.

     

  • At 11:12 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    The team looked completly different from the last game. Why?

    I know we played with some energy. And I know Utah just came off of a loss in Miami. But still...

    Our offense looked totally different. All the sudden, we were looking to run, everytime, and things were running smoothly. Again, why?

    I'd hate to give B Hill any credit, but as BIG mentioned, take a look at the player rotations. With Dooling playing backup point guard minutes, I no longer hate him. He can defend PG's, very well as he showed tonight. And he can run our offense just as good as Nelson or Arroyo. I wonder why this is the first time this has happened ALL YEAR? Redick played...his natural position. He played smart as he always does, and he showed he's not a bad defender himself. Ariza played...again his natural position. Hedo was put in a good position. He played SF, and since Darko was out, when Battie had to go out of the game, Hedo played PF, which was a lot better than seeing Garrity out there. Last, I should mention the defense. I will give Battie some credit as I think he helped out on the defensive end. But, the fact that so many guys were put on the floor in positions where their talents could be used and taken advantage of was the difference. The changes tonight were SO OBVIOUS.

    So that leaves me to question; how and why now? What took so long? Did someone get on Brian Hill's case? This was not a typical Brian Hill coached game.

     

  • At 12:16 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    I agree with OVERWADED that this was not a Brian Hill kind of style and player rotation. Hill would have never put Keyon in the back-up PG or bring in J.J. instead of Keith. That run and gun offense also is not to his liking. The only way to explain it is to believe that someone got to him on the basis that his job is not secure any more.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home